For the first time in his career, Victoria Fire Deputy Chief Dan Atkinson is seeing “compassion fatigue” among firefighters — the result of frequently reviving individuals after an overdose.
The Victoria Fire Department responded to an average of 60 to 70 overdose calls a month last year, a 10-fold increase from the six to seven a month in 2015.
“The cumulative effect of the calls start to take a toll,” Atkinson said, noting two firefighters have taken time off work for mental-health reasons in the past five years.
In light of the situation, Victoria firefighters have partnered with the Canadian Mental Health Association to improve mental health.
Thirteen members of the fire department have been trained to deliver mental-health programs to other first responders. The skill-building workshops include information on trauma, mental-health problems, and resiliency.
“A lot of it is about early recognition of warning signs, stressors and some tools on how to cope with those,” Atkinson said.
Traditional mental-health training deals with how to defuse following an incident, focusing on post-traumatic incident care. “We’re shifting our focus to pre-incident resiliency,” he said.
Mental wellness is not unlike physical fitness, Atkinson said.
“If we’re physically fit, if we experience an injury or an accident our bodies will heal quicker and our outcomes will be more positive,” he said. “The same is true with the mind. If we have a strong mind, we are better able to deal with stressors as they present.”
The program was launched by the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service last year.
Since 2014, 187 first responders and military personnel have committed suicide in Canada, including 48 first responders in 2016, according to the Tema Conter Memorial Trust, which raises awareness about suicide by first responders.
