Hours worked

B

battle964

Forum Ride Along
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
0
I have been in the fire and ems business for over 10 years now. my first 5 years was with a dept. that was slow and ran ALS engines. Since then i have been with a fire dept that is intergrated with EMS. This dept is one of the busiest depts in the south, so 24 hours on an ambulance is no picnic! Right now we are working 24 on and 48 off. the 24 hour shifts are burning out our paramedics at an alarming rate! Not many can stand being awake for 24+ hours at a time. My question is, what kind of hours are other large depts working? I heard that chicago fire is on a 24-48 and EMS in on a 24-72, is this true and if so does it work? what do other services work, 12 hours, 3- 13 hours shifts, 24s.....

thanks
 
I currently work 24/48, but we aren't a super busy department. We average 5-6 runs per shift, but that is combined run load - fire and EMS.

I used to work at a much busier service, and there we worked 12s. It wasn't unusual to do 8-10 runs in a 12 hour period, and have had a handful of shifts where we had 14+ runs in a shift. Over a two week period, my schedule would be M-T-F-S-S-W-Th.

I know there have been several other threads on this as well. You might want to try to do a search and see what comes up.
 
48/96
120/216
 
We do a 48/96. And it SUCKS. we aren't overly busy but we will get 10+ calls in that time. Couple that with a hour of paperwork PER CALL and it gets tiring.

I have never understood why medics get in trouble for making mistakes after 24+ hours of constant work while the bosses (who only work 8 hours a day) sit on their crystal palace.

Wy
 
Wyoming Medic said:
We do a 48/96. And it SUCKS. we aren't overly busy but we will get 10+ calls in that time. Couple that with a hour of paperwork PER CALL and it gets tiring.

I have never understood why medics get in trouble for making mistakes after 24+ hours of constant work while the bosses (who only work 8 hours a day) sit on their crystal palace.

Wy
Click to expand...

off topic...holy crap, an hour of paperwork for each call...that's alot of paperwork!

back on topic now..lol.

We work 12 hour shifts. 3 days, 3 nights, then 5 days off. I like it.
 
12 hours seems pretty common and seems to work out the best. we are currently running between 13 and 18 calls a shift (a 24 hour shift) each call lasts about 1 1/2 hours. depending on your station location. but if your not running a call your posting in an area that is on a call. We are supposed to rotate between the engine and the ambulance but because we are so short staffed we never really rotate.
 
I have worked places where we worked:

  • 10-15 calls/12 hrs and did 3-12's one week then 4 12's the next with voluntary WELL paid LDTs (definately the way to go as most people fought to take as many LDTs outside of work as they could and there was no complaining).
  • 2-10 calls per shift and did 48/48 or when we were super short we did 48/24 with at least 1 LDT per shift was almost guranteed.
  • Industrial setting in a disaster I worked 7a-7p M-Sa so 6 12s/wk
  • 2-10+ calls per shift usually with at least 1-2 LDTs due to being the only ALS unit in the county (there was another but it was so far down in the county it was 80+ miles from the main hospital we transported for and 40+ miles from nearest unit) 24/48 model
Epi-do said:
I currently work 24/48, but we aren't a super busy department. We average 5-6 runs per shift, but that is combined run load - fire and EMS.

I used to work at a much busier service, and there we worked 12s. It wasn't unusual to do 8-10 runs in a 12 hour period, and have had a handful of shifts where we had 14+ runs in a shift. Over a two week period, my schedule would be M-T-F-S-S-W-Th.

I know there have been several other threads on this as well. You might want to try to do a search and see what comes up.
Click to expand...
 
If you are in a busy area 12 hours may be to long for your safety and your patients safety. In some rural areas that run a cal every couple of days so you get plenty of down time you could work as long as you want to w/o problems. There is no one size fits all in EMS.
 
I guess I am just a magnet but I seem to run close to as many calls in the rural areas I worked as I did in the city...:ph34r:

medic417 said:
If you are in a busy area 12 hours may be to long for your safety and your patients safety. In some rural areas that run a cal every couple of days so you get plenty of down time you could work as long as you want to w/o problems. There is no one size fits all in EMS.
Click to expand...
 
I've got a friend with the Philly FD and he said they run like this:

10 hour day
10 hour day
14 hour night
14 hour night
96 hours off

So it is: on for 10---off for 14---on for 24---off for 10---on for 14---off for 96. Then start over again.:wacko:

I kind of like it even though it is a little confusing!:P
 
Our schedule is probably one of the hardest to understand out there, but it's great once you get up the seniority list.

35% of our shifts are 8 hours long.
65% of them are 12 hours long.

Every 6 months we redo our schedule. Start at the top of seniority and work down to the bottom, they can pick ANY shift they want. If they want to work early morning Monday, mid Tuesday, Wednesday night, and Friday night. They can. If they want to do straight mornings, they can. The guys at the top love it, the guys at the bottom hate it because they get stuck bouncing between nights and days sometimes going day night day night in the week.
 
We are...uh...


Whatever we bid for shift wise

We run one station 8 hours, 12's and 24's. We have transfer cars (stations do transfers too) and only run 8-10 hours (but get $2 more a hour)

Last 2 weeks I worked 187 hours total. A bit much honestly. This week I'm already at 42 hours and its only Monday.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top