The Tema Conter Memorial is an organization that is dedicated to spreading awareness about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was founded in 2001 by Vince Savoia, a paramedic, who had attended the scene of Tema Conter’s murder and developed PTSD soon after (The Tema Conter Memorial trust). The call happened in 1988 and was a critical incident for Vince. There was no formal support system in place for first responders dealing with PTSD so Vince was left to cope on his own (The Tema Conter Memorial trust). In 2000 he decided that there should be a place for first responders, who are going through the same thing, to get help (The Tema Conter Memorial trust). It has now become the “Canada's leading provider of peer-support, family assistance,…show more content… Some of the stresses that they discussed had to do with specific happenings such as patient deaths, pediatrics, burns and other call types but a major theme was a sense of an inability to help (Halpern). These workplace stresses can cause a variety of issues. Some types of stress responses are listed in a table in the article. Many of the responses are emotional such as sadness, anger, withdrawal or dissatisfaction but there were also physical results such as headaches, and sleep disruption (Halpern). Some of the interventions that were used to manage these events are supervisor and peer support, having a break after the incidents occurrence and speaking with counselling (Halpern). Peer and supervisor support seems to be the most important and effective method of managing the critical incident (Halpern). Speaking with counselling has a major limitation of the stigma surrounding it. Many of the subjects believed that if they were to talk to the counsellor, that people would perceive them as being weak or having something wrong with them…show more content… There are great improvements being made and the discussion has been started but there is still a long ways to go. In the past year there has been a push across the country to have PTSD in first responders recognised as being caused by the nature of the job. In Manitoba and Alberta, if a paramedic is diagnosed with PTSD and makes a claim to WSIB, it is automatically attributed to their work (Gillis, 2016). In the rest of the country, the claim must be accompanied by proof that it is a workplace illness and this process can take months to years to complete (Gillis, 2016). Many other provinces are being pushed to match the level of care that Manitoba and Alberta show for their emergency service workers (Gillis, 2016). Ontario is currently in the process of passing a bill through its legislation that would support first responders in this way (Legislative Assembly of Ontario,
