On Call Medic

[lightsandsirens5]

I'd want to be paid my regular rate. If I'm being forced to give up my free time to stay within a certain distance of the station, then I better be getting payed my normal rate.

Yea, that's what I meant. If I already lived within 10 minutes, I'd be cool with it. But as soon as tones drop for the green truck, I'd want to be paid my full wage until they are back in service and I am not on a call. If I lived 15 minutes away, I'd want full pay the whole time as I'd have to essentially be on duty the whole shift.

 

[HotelCo]

Yea, that's what I meant. If I already lived within 10 minutes, I'd be cool with it. But as soon as tones drop for the green truck, I'd want to be paid my full wage until they are back in service and I am not on a call. If I lived 15 minutes away, I'd want full pay the whole time as I'd have to essentially be on duty the whole shift.

I'd want full pay the whole time. You're pretty much being required to stay within the area (and sober), which is dictating what I can do on my days off...

 

[usalsfyre]

I'd want full pay the whole time. You're pretty much being required to stay within the area (and sober), which is dictating what I can do on my days off...

On-call is a pretty well established part of healthcare. We used to run an on-call truck for LDTs, and my wife (who works in a different allied health field) has had on-call once a week at every job she's ever had. It sucks, but has strong precedent.

 

[reaper]

On-call is a pretty well established part of healthcare. We used to run an on-call truck for LDTs, and my wife (who works in a different allied health field) has had on-call once a week at every job she's ever had. It sucks, but has strong precedent.

For EMS it shows bad management planning. I have never worked a system that had on call. They may ask for people to sign up for a list, if bad weather is expected, but never all the time or forced.

It is admins way of covering shifts without having to pay people. You might as well be on a volunteer service.

 

[usalsfyre]

For EMS it shows bad management planning. I have never worked a system that had on call. They may ask for people to sign up for a list, if bad weather is expected, but never all the time or forced.

It is admins way of covering shifts without having to pay people. You might as well be on a volunteer service.

Actually our on-call system for LDTs made sense, as much as I hated it. We send a fair number of people out of our base hospital (usually relatively stable kids because our pediatric services in town are non-existent) to CMC Dallas which is 116 or so miles away. Usually one every two or three days. There's no way to predict it, so you can't make staffing a full time truck pay off. So enter the on-call system, where if there's a transfer you get called in to do it without the burden if removing a truck from the system for 4+hours.

The on-call system like JT is talking about is used by small service from what I've seen. I'm surprised a few of them I've seen are paid at all. It's not about poor management in a lot of those cases, it's about the fact that there is literally no money available to pay a second crew full time. Some of these services should regionalize it's true, but when your the only thing around for 80 or more miles, what's there to regionalize?

 

[TransportJockey]

The on-call system like JT is talking about is used by small service from what I've seen. I'm surprised a few of them I've seen are paid at all. It's not about poor management in a lot of those cases, it's about the fact that there is literally no money available to pay a second crew full time. Some of these services should regionalize it's true, but when your the only thing around for 80 or more miles, what's there to regionalize?

This. I'm a member of a municipal service that only has 7 full time employees. Some days we'll have no calls, others we might only have 3 or 4, but when you cover over 3k sq miles it gets tough to do with just one truck. The chief explained it to me that, yes, it's a holdover from when they were vollies, but it does make a certain kind of sense out here.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

For EMS it shows bad management planning. I have never worked a system that had on call. They may ask for people to sign up for a list, if bad weather is expected, but never all the time or forced.

It is admins way of covering shifts without having to pay people. You might as well be on a volunteer service.

Very true.

Of course I am coming from a mainly volunteer background where I was only paid while actually on a call. So making two bucks an hour is wonderful compared to making none.

 

[Veneficus]

If they want me on call, then they will pay me my full wage the entire time. I do not put my life on hold for them and $1.50 an hour is not gonna cut it.

At least normal wage, probably considerably more to make it worth while.

I hear all kinds of whining about pay in EMS and how more education should not be required because the pay will not improve.

But as long as people accept such terms thinking that they are somehow responsible for society or being there to "save a life" places will continue to pull this crap. You are responsible for nobody off the clock.

I suggest a boycott of all agencies using such nonsense.

If people want you around "just in case" they need to pay for your valuable time as well as enough people to cover the time and volume needed.

 

[NomadicMedic]

We run ALS IFT at my second job. We normally have 2 medics on and an "on call" medic to cover in the rare case they're both out. I take call on days when I'm home doing nothing. It's a little extra cash for doing what I'd be doing for free. Working out at the gym or hanging at home. It makes sense for our agency.

 

[Bieber]

Sounds like you're expecting the paramedic to fulfill the exact same role and duties as if he were not on call but working, with the only difference being his "posting" location. So why shouldn't he or she get their regular wage? They're doing their regular work, aren't they?

 

[Veneficus]

So why shouldn't he or she get their regular wage? They're doing their regular work,

Because fools will accept less than regular wage and drag down the pay for all the other EMS providers.

 

[Bieber]

Because fools will accept less than regular wage and drag down the pay for all the other EMS providers.

Indeed. I've been saying since I first became an EMT that as long as we are willing to do this job for peanuts, that's exactly what we'll get. It isn't noble, it's suicidal.

 

[Outbac1]

Having people "On Call" is not the way to run a professional service. If there is not enough money to pay to run a service with enough fully staffed units why run one at all. It may have been well established at one time to do "on call", but times have changed and other places have moved on.

If I want an ambulance I do not want to wait for someone (x2), to drive 10 minutes to a station, and maybe pass my place on the way, to get a unit ,whos readyness is questionable, to come and get me. When they show up they are not in uniform and may be stinky and dirty from whatever they were doing when they got the call. And then charge me hundreds of dollars for this service!
Are you Americans (not all of you), out of your everlovin minds. I think you've been dipping into Brown's ketamine. I'd likely be better off taking a taxi. I probably would get a dirty, stinky driver in a questionably safe car. However it would be cheaper and is probably at least staffed.

C'mon America! You can be better than that.

 

[Outbac1]

Indeed. I've been saying since I first became an EMT that as long as we are willing to do this job for peanuts, that's exactly what we'll get. It isn't noble, it's suicidal.

Speaking of peanuts. I was once told(long before I became a paramedic), by an employee (a foreman), that if I continued to pay peanuts I would continue to get monkeys for workers. He was right I was getting what I paid for.

 

[DarkStarr]

???

if im being asked to make myself available, i'll ask to be paid regular wages.

when we respond POV, off duty, we get 1 hr if en route and cancelled, 2 hours if on scene (and helping), and 4 hours for riding in.

only once did i accept a 'hey, so and so is stuck at the station by herself until other crew gets back, will you listen incase a call drops?' i accepted it because i was sleeping when they called, and planned to remain doing so for several hours. put the portable on 'page' and went back to sleep.