Not to tangent this off of Hall, but my hospital used to do this. The full time people (we have 4, 2 on days and 2 on nights) were primarily patient care techs, on the floor doing tech work, until they got a PICU/NICU run, then they and the charge nurse left to do the transport. Only one guy enjoyed/tolerated the job, because he worked as an ER tech prior to getting into EMS. The rest HATED it, because they were hired by the EMS department, and then assigned to the PICU under the PICU's supervision (which often conflicted with the EMS rules). The nurses worked them for 12 straight, they had no downtime, and they either quit or got fired for pissing off the nurses before they could transfer to a 911 spot (I think only one guy was able to get off the floor full time and transfer to a 911 truck). And when we picked up OT to cover, there were nurses who didn't even bother to ask our names, referring to us as either the driver or the EMT when introducing us to the patients (but some were much better that others when it came to treating us like actual people).
Hopefully your girlfriend's hospital treats their EMTs better.