From Paramedic to Advocate: The Healthcare Journey

For forty years, Hal Newman worked in Emergency Medical Services. After retiring, he decided to start an online platform, The Last Ambulance, where he investigates the problems he saw in the EMS system. 

Messages started pouring in from EMS workers from across the country. Now his platform has become a voice for many health care and emergency service workers who are demoralized, exhausted, hanging on by a thread – and who are afraid to speak publicly about what is happening inside the system. 

Despite having worked in the system for so long, he didn’t realize just how broken it was until he started publishing The Last Ambulance.

Host: Karyn Pugliese

Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), max collins (Production Manager), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)

Additional music by Audio Network

Further reading:

• Chaque second compte — The Last Ambulance
• Yet Another Preventable Tragedy in Montreal — The Last Ambulance
• A Child Dies as Ambulances Stall on Quebec First Nation — The Rover
• Quebec Leaves Another First Nation Without an Ambulance — The Rover
• Long wait for medical care likely played role in death of Atikamekw baby, Quebec coroner finds — CBC

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