Celebrating Health Care Aide Day | Meet Kate, a Health Care Aide at ParaMed Calgary

It’s #HealthCareAide Day in Alberta and Manitoba. We recognize the many dedicated Health Care Aides who provide essential daily care for patients in our ParaMed communities.

We spoke with a Health Care Aide making vital contributions in the lives of patients and clients in their homes.

Meet Kate, a Health Care Aide who has worked in home care for 30 years. She’s been working with ParaMed Calgary for nearly a decade.

Kate’s passion for helping people is what drew her to a career in home care.

Although ParaMed provides home care services to clients of all ages, Kate is particularly fond of supporting and caring for seniors.

“It’s in my nature – I love to help people. My children always say I love the elderly. It’s a challenging job, but in most cases, it’s lovely, Kate said. You get to meet all kinds of people with all kinds of challenges, but it’s rewarding too. I just love to help people. That’s the reason why I’ve stayed for 30 years.”

Kate takes on a broad range of tasks to support each client every day, including assisting with medication, showers, exercises, housekeeping, meal preparation, and much more.

Each time Kate assists a client in their home, she believes that she is helping them become more independent and contributes to a better quality of life for them.

“When you see them acknowledge how much appreciation they have for what you’re doing for them, it makes me happy too,” Kate said.

Providing essential care to meet the diverse range of people’s needs in their homes can also present challenges. Health Care Aides offer significant emotional commitment and are required to remain flexible in meeting the needs of complex patients.

For example, Kate recalls a client that wasn’t always in the best mood and wasn’t very responsive, and Kate remembers being fulfilled by being able to make her client smile when the family was unable to. It helped put the family’s mind at ease.

Kate enjoys meeting different people from different cultures and walks of life.

“It makes my day because of the smiles on their faces, the thank you, you can tell that they really appreciate what you are doing for them,” she says.