Joshua Sangster has been a paramedic in New Brunswick for the last ten years. For half that time he’s been in the band Honey Gut. With the province up in arms over the requirement that paramedics offer aid in the language of your choice, rather than getting lost in the CBC’s comment section, he’s given voice on the matter in the band’s latest single, “Unsung.”
Giving an insider opinion on one of New Brunswick’s hot political issues, Honey Gut advocates for care and employment over questions of language.
“I agree completely that everyone deserves their language of choice. It’s a human right here and a good thing; it’s just not a realistic goal to have a bilingual medic on every ambulance right now, or to award jobs based on the medic having bilingualism,” says Sangster.
“There simply aren’t enough bilingual medics in the province, and it’s contributing to ambulances not being staffed, which equals a really flawed system.”
The song softly resonates with the words “I know people that help other people” as its primary theme. There’s an appropriately dark thread of lo-fi vocals weaving its way through the steady triumvirate of guitar, drum and bass, and needles its way in with lines like “How can I help you / Try not to die, sir / Until your language is asked.”
Sangster alleges that because paramedics are improperly classified in their profession, underrecognized, undercompensated and subject to extremely high suicide attempt rates, they are performing one of the toughest jobs out there.
“Mix in false promises from government and the paramedic issues being used as political leverage for votes, etc. It just wears a lot of medics out. There are constantly ambulances ‘out of service,’ aka unstaffed due to all these factors.”
Sangster says that he’s managed to cope with the situation and its politics by landing himself a comparatively quiet and low stress position on Deer island.
“I can separate myself from a lot of the craziness. Gives me kind of a perspective from space. I get really frustrated for all my friends and coworkers who have had the life and morale sucked out of them so that’s where the song came from.”