Innovative emergency service KERPA featured in new book by best-selling author
By Kyra Hoggan
Local Kootenay Emergency Response Physicians Association (KERPA) has been featured in a book by national best-selling author Dr. Brian Goldman called The Casino Shift: Stories from an ER on the Edge.
The book, to quote publisher Harper Collins, is, “an hour-by-hour account of what a Canadian emergency room is like in these turbulent times when ER staff must be prepared to see, diagnose, and treat any condition, often under unrelenting pressure. In addition to the introduction of the “casino shift” (a shorter night shift), there have been incredible leaps in technology and the know-how of ER physicians since Dr. Brian Goldman wrote the bestselling The Night Shift 15 years ago. But patients’ problems can be exponentially more complex too.”
An entire chapter is devoted to KERPA’s ground-breaking mission, “to roll fully equipped vehicles straight to remote, life-threatening 911 scenes in the Kootenays – bringing the ER to the patient where rural access is toughest.”
KERPA is the only organisation of its kind in Canada, boasting two doctors, with a third in training, two response vehicles, and utilizing local helicopters on a number of occasions to ensure access to patients in even the most remote situations. They are deployed only to critical scenarios in which immediate physician care may be the difference between life and death.
“He (Goldman) nails the reality: despite real resistance proving physician roadside critical care works, we’ve bridged deadly transport delays and helped save lives that might’ve been lost otherwise,” said KREPA medical director Dr, Nicholas Sparrow. “Huge thanks to Dr. Goldman for spotlighting Canadian rural emergency innovation and for the kind shout-out – (it) means a lot!”
Meanwhile, KERPA continues to build its team through recruitment and training, pushing boundaries in critical patient care and saving lives in a way no one in Canada has done before.
They also host/participate in a variety of fund-raising activities and events year-round, as they are a not-for-profit charity and rely on the support and backing of communities, businesses and individuals in the Kootenays they serve. While they are dispatched by 9-1-1, they don’t receive any government funding, nor do they bill MSP.
For more information about Goldman’s book, visit https://thecasinoshift.com/
For more information about KERPA, you can find their website at kerpa.org or their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KERPAkoots
