Moncton — To the astonishment of many, the Higgs provincial government has solved New Brunswick’s paramedic crisis after only a few hours in office. And at the same time, they have brought 200 new immigrant families to the Picture Province.
Ambulance New Brunswick announced today that due to Higgs’ loosening the language restrictions on hiring of paramedics, “new pathways of resolution have opened” that were previously unavailable.
“It really made things a lot easier to fix very quickly,” said Lucie Richard, CEO of Ambulance New Brunswick. “If all of a sudden we don’t have to care what language the paramedics speak, we can fill all of those vacancies toute suite!”
Richard explained that Brazil had a similar paramedic shortage over the past decade, and started an aggressive training and mentorship program in the lead-up to the 2016 Summer Olympics. Now, the country has so many skilled paramedics that they are beginning to emigrate to other countries.
“Usually speaking only Portuguese is a barrier for these folks, but not in New Brunswick!” said Richard. “Once we decided that paramedics and patients don’t need to understand the word noises coming out of each other’s face holes, it just took a couple of well-placed phone calls to fix the problem fast! You’re welcome!”
Not everyone is as impressed with this outcome, most of all Kris Austin of the People’s Alliance Party. “We didn’t mean that Ambulance NB could loosen all language restrictions! We meant just the restrictions that helped the Frenchies! This is a disaster!”
Meanwhile, Ambulance New Brunswick is getting ready for its influx of new talent. The preparations include outfitting all ambulances with Google Translate and Portuguese-English dictionaries for areas with poor cellular service.
“If all else fails, we hope the patients are good at playing Charades,” she concluded.