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ADAM BOWIE
canadaeast news service

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FREDERICTON - Two paramedics from England have moved to New Brunswick to practise their profession under the umbrella of the new provincial ambulance system.

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Greg Agnew/Times & Transcript

Mark and Clare Lewis are paramedics with Ambulance New Brunswick who moved to the province from the United Kingdom.

Clare and Mark Lewis are working as primary care paramedics in southern New Brunswick. They say they made a conscious decision to move to the Maritimes after spending some time in the region on vacation.

"We sort of looked at where in the world we could go to and Canada was just tops," Clare says.

"It has some of the highest quality of life in the world, so we came here on holiday to see how we liked it and we went through Quebec and New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia and we just fell in love with the place, really."

The married couple had been working as paramedics for more than seven years in the United Kingdom.

Mark says he believes Ambulance NB is doing a good job of getting past several early challenges.

"The London Ambulance Service, which is where we worked before, obviously has been established for a long time and had already gone through all these teething problems that New Brunswick is going through at the moment," he says.

He says Ambulance NB's management team is working hard to address issues and find the best solutions.

"Upper management are a lot more accessible and open to new suggestions and new ideas," he says.

"Here, they're a lot more approachable and open to change because the whole system is still evolving."

Mark says the biggest professional adjustment has involved getting used to the geographical differences.

"There's a lot more hospitals and you're a lot closer to (them in London)," he says.

"And here, you're obviously going to have to travel a little bit further to get to a (hospital specializing in various medical disciplines)."

Clare says a round of new hirings has helped reduce the massive amounts of overtime New Brunswick paramedics were working, but she says she was used to putting in the extra hours.

"It's slowed down a little," she says.