Paramedics on Site Improve Safety

March 3, 2014 in News
Explorer: Spring 2014

Athabasca Basin Security now Offering Medical Mobile Patrol

At any given time at the Mosaic Esterhazy site, a fully trained paramedic is on duty. Started in October 2013, Athabasca Basin Security’s new Medical Mobile Patrol program offers an effective way to increase safety, which is a top priority for everyone. “There’s definitely a huge advantage to having a paramedic on site,” says Sascha Sasbrink-Harkema, Director of Operations at Athabasca Basin Security. “Paramedics have a much more advanced level of medical emergency training, which allows us to provide an improved health service. And there’s more value-added for clients because paramedics can also take care of first-aid/ CPR training for site staff, hearing and lung testing, and drug and alcohol testing. Where our clients would have gone outside to contract different agencies for each of these, we can provide all that now in one shop. It’s really a win-win for everyone.”

Athabasca Basin Security provides 6 paramedics to the site with 24/7 coverage, with each paramedic covering one twelve hour shift.

“All our security personnel are Medical First Responders, and they do a great job of responding to medical incidents,” says Sasbrink- Harkema, “We are always looking for ways to improve the services we offer to our clients. We made the decision to split the medical side from security, and having staff who are more highly trained and focused just on that really allows us to provide a very high level of service.”

The pilot program, now in its fifth month of operations, has been a huge success. Athabasca Basin Security plans to offer the service to other interested clients in the near future. “Often, the responsibility for security and medical are falling under the same person or department. Clients are looking for service providers that can handle both security and medical. With this program, we are in a position to not only provide top quality security services, but we can now also offer highly trained paramedics in our Medical Mobile Patrol program.”