Thanks for the replies.
This fire dept. to me is an "up and coming" and the civilian medic program is less then five years in the making. We should be further along then what we are but we are getting there.....Let me give you some hx and maybe this can explain the situation a little better.
The county I live in used to only have one ALS service (hospital based) that provided service to the entire county, running mostly out of fire departments. In the beginning, there were only 2 ALS ambulances for the entire county. After time, there were many “Quick Response Vehicles”, staffed with medics running out of the larger fire depts. If a run was BLS, then the paramedic automatically marked in service. If the run was ALS, the paramedic would jump on the responding ambulance and someone on the ambulance would drive the QRV to the receiving hospital.
Our county used to partly fund the ALS service by contracting the hospital based ambulance service to provide ALS to the fire depts. However, approx. 10 years ago, the county decided it was no longer going to fund the ALS and advised the fire depts. they would have five years to get their own ALS in place. At that time, the county stated it would pay each dept. to send 2 people to paramedic school. That was 10 years ago. Five years ago the depts. were to have their ALS in place and fund it themselves.
Now to today! Most of the fire depts went with fire/medics, however, for the fire depts in the areas of the county that weren't as financially well off, they went with civilian. We are struggling because we are not getting near the recruits. We cannot afford fire/medics in many aspects and one of the biggest issues that seems to occur in our area with fire/medics is after a while of being on the ambulance, these medics will let their certifications lapse and go back to being an EMT-Basic because they want to run off of engines. Many fire departments in our area have started making their new recruits sign a contract as soon as they get hired stating they will keep their paramedic certification for a minimum of 20 years or if they are an EMT-B, they have three years to become a paramedic. If they falter on this contract, they are fired.
It can be very complicated but this fire department is actually taking the time, trying to make things as fair as possible. However, we still have a lot of issues. No, we do not have a fire pension which would be wonderful because the civilian pension is HORRIBLE! Our administration is working on this. They are also working on our disability, 401a, and promotion process. We just received a 12% raise for the year.
I need a job, I am not going to quit because I believe in this fire department and the people I work with. I want it to be better though and am looking for advice on how we might accomplish this. We need good people! I need help on how we can recruit excellent paramedics and changes we might make to our system to accommodate the paramedic.
I really do appreciate all of your comments.
