Help!!

[parapaulieFL]

I'm so fed up with th private service I work for here in FL. But to make a long story short me and my partner have already been on the road for 11 hours straight. We have had four vent transports with a double ejection MVA in between. No breaks. Now, we are on our fifth vent, which was out of town four hours round trip. When we get back we will have been running almost 13 hours straight. We have already been informed by dispatch that when we clear this, we have another out of town call which will be another 8 hours round trip. So that's about 21 hours of non stop driving in all. In my 10 years on the job, I have never heard of anything like this. We are already fatigued and since I have a baby on the way, I can't up and quit. I've heard this isn't even illegal. How can this be?!? I just don't feel that this is safe, for the pt or us. Thoughts?

 

[medic417]

You accept the money when you are doing nothing w/o complaint so no need to complain now. You hired on knowing you were scheduled X number of hours. By saying yes to the job offer you are saying you can handle a busy shift. Is it legal? Yes. Is it safe? Probably not thats why they limit truck drivers.

 

[Marty Mcfly]

They do not care about you. Every private service is exactly the same. Overworked and severely underpaid.

 

[SoCal911]

Yet they make a sh*t ton of $$$ on those transports.

 

[parapaulieFL]

Well I'm not complaining about running calls and working hard, that's part of the biz and I'm used to it. My main concern is purely safety. A lot of the ambulance involved fatlities are caused by poor safety decisions either by field personnel or management. I put my patients and my patch before these private service money :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored:s. How many people have to die or be injured before we correct the system? The funny thing is is that if something were to happen and I got called to court, I would be questioned as to why I didn't refuse the call knowing that this isn't safe. Lose-lose situation. As it turns out, I politely voiced my concerns and management agreed, this time. It just saddens me to see what humans will do to each other in the name of money.

 

[Handsome Robb]

They do not care about you. Every private service is exactly the same. Overworked and severely underpaid.

That's a very generalized and very untrue statement. I work for a private that is very good to its employees. If you consistently get late calls a couple days in a row they will bump your start time the next day back.

Dispatchers do everything in their power to spread the workload, if a certain unit has been stuck in the suck they will try hard to move them to the outskirts of town and post them at posts that rarely receive calls and then skirt them around as the system changes to try and keep them away from the call volume.

Yea the pay could be better but you can't complain when the standard training program is <150 hours in length.

 

[Marty Mcfly]

That's a very generalized and very untrue statement. I work for a private that is very good to its employees. If you consistently get late calls a couple days in a row they will bump your start time the next day back.

Dispatchers do everything in their power to spread the workload, if a certain unit has been stuck in the suck they will try hard to move them to the outskirts of town and post them at posts that rarely receive calls and then skirt them around as the system changes to try and keep them away from the call volume.

Yea the pay could be better but you can't complain when the standard training program is <150 hours in length.

I'd like to work where you work. We are constantly getting heldover, and if we do, they dont give us a pity party. We are to report back to work at our assigned shift time. I once worked an overtime shift from 1pm to 9pm. They held me over until midnight and I had to be back in at 5:30 am. I told them that I am only getting around 3 hours of sleep and it's unsafe. All i got was a "too bad" "dont be late tomorrow". Like i said before THEY DO NOT CARE!

 

[firetender]

Well I'm not complaining about running calls and working hard, that's part of the biz and I'm used to it. My main concern is purely safety. A lot of the ambulance involved fatlities are caused by poor safety decisions either by field personnel or management. I put my patients and my patch before these private service money :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored:s. How many people have to die or be injured before we correct the system? The funny thing is is that if something were to happen and I got called to court, I would be questioned as to why I didn't refuse the call knowing that this isn't safe. Lose-lose situation. As it turns out, I politely voiced my concerns and management agreed, this time. It just saddens me to see what humans will do to each other in the name of money.

The bottom line is in situations like this YOU have to decide if putting yourself in this position will in any way compromise yourself OR/AND your patient, now or in the future. If you think you "might" get away with this one but are sure it would jeopardize your being able to handle something that comes up unexpectedly (like, stretched to your limits!) while managing this one then don't worry about what others will think or even how evil the system is. or illegal the request...

Respectfully Decline!

and deal with the consequences when they come up knowing you honored yourself and the people in your care.