SD EMS wage protest.

Excuse the typos, I hate posting from phone
 
DrankTheKoolaid said:
Now look at the big picture. Nationwide there are more volunteer EMTs and Paramedics who are likely better trained the most paid responders. And I say that because it is not work to the it is a passion.
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I have to say that I have witnessed this firsthand. I am a volunteer EMT and I work with a lot of EMTS/Paramedics and to us it's not work but a passion. I have seen so much in the last year then I did on my ride-alongs for school.
 
EMT2015 said:
I have to say that I have witnessed this firsthand. I am a volunteer EMT and I work with a lot of EMTS/Paramedics and to us it's not work but a passion. I have seen so much in the last year then I did on my ride-alongs for school.
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Passion is nice but to be proficient you need call volume. My experience (limited to Northern CA) is that it is difficult to get enough real experience to truly be proficient when you attend (at most) 4 "trainings" per month, work one shift a week (hoping for a call) and/or respond from home.
I'll take the salty medic if I'm the one on the cot.
 
Flight-LP said:
Sadly several posts in this thread completely debunk that opinion.............
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True, but I find it amusing that unskilled fast food workers think their meager skills set should command $15/hr, while EMT's get $8 to $12/hr in many cases, and have to deal with liability issues related to pt. care and driving.
 
DrankTheKoolaid said:
Now look at the big picture. Nationwide there are more volunteer EMTs and Paramedics who are likely better trained the most paid responders. And I say that because it is not work to the it is a passion.
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How did you arrive at the conclusion that volunteer EMT's and medics are better trained than paid employees? From what I've seen, the volunteers typically attend a small fraction of the training and in-service that the career personnel are required to do. We get a fair amount of out-of-service time for drills and such. It would be extremely challenging for a volunteer organization to replicate that, even half of that for most of their members. Volunteer hiring standard and career hiring standards can be completely different (which can go both ways). The call volume of the volunteers will be less than that of career personnel. I run around 70-100 EMS calls per month, depending on how much OT I do, at least 50-60 from by regular hours. What does the call volume of a volunteer that pulls a shift once a week look like?

There are plenty of experienced providers that don't have the passion that they had when they started, but they still do their job well. Volunteers don't necessarily do poorly at their function, but in most cases the career people will have more overall experience and training.
 
Remi said:
Fire and police have convinced society that their mere availability is worth much more than what they actually produce, which is why they are typically compensated so much better than EMS.

EMS won't be compensated the same way until the find a way to get paid for their potential rather that for what they actually do in a typical shift.
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I find that most people don't think about EMS until they need one for the first time, as they don't typically come across medical emergencies in their travels. On the other hand, they see reminders of fire and police presence/events on a regular basis. Most people are concerned with fire hazards and CO exposure in their home, burglary and shady people on their property, and the news gives good coverage of fires, transit accidents, shootings and stabings (yes, traumas are EMS, but the story emphasizes police activity), things like that. You can see it on the road where people cut off ambulances, or refuse to yield, but are irritated when the bus takes more than 3 minutes to get to their house when they're the one in need.
 
46Young said:
Same question, this comment:

Jack Wilner · Top Commenter · Van Nuys Senior High
Rather than telling the Public what your Hourly wage is, I would like to know what your Annual Income is, as well as the number of hours you work a shift. If you work 8 hour shifts, or 40 hours a week, you have a real issue that needs addressing. If you work 24 hour shifts, and you are paid for all 24 hours, you have no dog in the fight. If you want sympathy, tell the whole truth. I was a Paramedic for 16 years and we worked 10 days a month like the Fire Departments.....our wage was based on 40 hour weeks, with anything more as overtime. If I was making $12 or $14 an hour you are talking a very decent wage. If you work 1 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off 1 on then get 4 days off and come back and work 1 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, 1 on, then 6 days off, (which is standard Kelly days) your 1st week is 72 hours, (40 hours regular and 32 overtime) for a 2 week paycheck..that's $2112 gross, you next check would be slightly lower. By my calculation you are earning about $60k a year without working any of the 20 days off you have a month.....Cost of living is a huge issue in certain areas (San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara) but industry standard has a lot to do with it. I want you to show me a "Private" Company Paramedic or EMT that's making $100k a year, that's just a lie.
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Actually, yes I do agree with the point that was trying to be made. It is one thing to complain about a low hourly wage, and while there is zero debate that many involved in EMS are paid less per hour than they should get, more needs to be considered when looking at a wage and benefits package than just the hourly pay rate.

There are a lot of different schedules out there; some include a few hours (or sometimes a lot of hours) of overtime each week. Depending on how many, this may or may not have a signifigant impact on your monthly pay. Complaining soley about pay rates makes for a great soundbite, and it does help to underscore the problem and hopefully make the public a little more aware, but there is more that goes into it than that.
 
46Young said:
I find that most people don't think about EMS until they need one for the first time, as they don't typically come across medical emergencies in their travels. On the other hand, they see reminders of fire and police presence/events on a regular basis.
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What? You mean people don't care about things until they need them? You mean EMS as a whole does a **** job of promoting itself? You mean EMS providers are more likely to sit back and whine instead of trying to force change? What? Say it ain't so! :D
 
That wasn't a absolute. I have worked with both and I know volunteers medics that would run circles around some ft paid and visa versa.

And that is from what "you" have seen. Just like likes what I posted has been my experience.

And just because someone runs "lots" of calls does not make them any better then anyone else. Trust me on that. The busier a system is, the less QA is performed which means substandard care is being missed.
 
DrankTheKoolaid said:
That wasn't a absolute. I have worked with both and I know volunteers medics that would run circles around some ft paid and visa versa.

And that is from what "you" have seen. Just like likes what I posted has been my experience.

And just because someone runs "lots" of calls does not make them any better then anyone else. Trust me on that. The busier a system is, the less QA is performed which means substandard care is being missed.
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Not necessarily true. Where I work there is a QA every month and is mandatory attendance. I run well over a 100 calls a month and HAVE ran circles around a well seasond volunteer. But this shouldn't be a pissing match and think this talk of volunteers is side tracking this whole subject. This is a subject for those of us that are trying to provide for ourselves or familys. A mcdonalds job is something you do in high school or college living with your mom and dad. EMTs have way more responsibilitys and held to a higher standard. I made more in highschool washing dishes than I did my first emt job. $10.00 an hour washing dishes back when minimum wage was $7.55 an hour. Hell I think it was less? When I got my emt, I was making $8.25 an hour. I continued on with my education got a degree, my pay NEVER matched my education when I got my Pcard it did by a few dollars lol. Now im a paramedic with a degree. I make $12 an hour. I make about $30k a year after tax, insurarnce, 401k. Im gonna make the same as a burger flipper? When they raised the state minimum to $9.00 alot of emts are still making that. Why????
Tell you why because the same people that say "oh its just a stepping stone" and fight against representation are the same people that are there 3 years or more down the road. Thats some stepping stone you got there!
 
Case in point, you run 100 calls, so does every other Medic on your system.

Who exactly reviews each of those charts?
 
DrankTheKoolaid said:
Case in point, you run 100 calls, so does every other Medic on your system.

Who exactly reviews each of those charts?
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That would be 4 individuals that do a rough scan and anything which stands out for review. But again this isn't a pissing match and has nothing to do with wages vs cost of living.
 
I worked in this system as both a BLS emt and a ALS medic.
Even though I was a medic I had to work BLS for a few months until a spot opened up for field training.

You work 7 12hr shifts in two weeks. So 4 shifts one week and 3 the next. Each car except for the float units has a day and night shift.

EMTs make 10 an hour and medics make 13 an hour with over time after 8 hrs.
There are a few 24 hour kelly shifts available and as a emt you get paid minimum and I think as a medic you get 11 an hour. Its all straight pay for the full 24 hour with no OT unless you work outside your shift or have to hold over.

On the bls side if you work weekdays you get run pretty hard with back to back transports, paper pcrs and you are treated like poop by management.

ALS can be even busier, most days you just run from call to call to call in the "vortex". Transport times are very short and sometimes you get so far in the weeds with paperwork you hope for a long hospital delay to catch up.

Medic 11 was listed as 3rd busiest medic unit in the country and the other city units are just as busy.
I think the reason why San Diego is so busy for its side it due to the special populations. Due to the favorable weather there is a large homeless and elderly population. It is also so close to the border and gets a lot of spill over from Tijuana. It also doesn't help that company can't/won't upstaff.

When I was working nights I couldn't sleep at all during the day. I would maybe get 8 hrs of sleep during 4 day go-around. It eventually messed up my sleeping patterns so much that even on days off I couldn't sleep. I felt like a walking zombie.

I work for a different company now and make less money but actually have a decent quality of life.
 
DrankTheKoolaid said:
That wasn't a absolute. I have worked with both and I know volunteers medics that would run circles around some ft paid and visa versa.

And that is from what "you" have seen. Just like likes what I posted has been my experience.

And just because someone runs "lots" of calls does not make them any better then anyone else. Trust me on that. The busier a system is, the less QA is performed which means substandard care is being missed.
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I can buy into the idea that a volunteer may be more empathetic and more accommodating than a salty, burnt out employee. However, tell me which medic student that you would want to work on you - one that had 50 patient contacts with the acutely ill, or the one that had 5 contacts? I'm using my own experience here - in medic school in NYC, we worked in a tiered system, where we were only dispatched to ALS call types. I saw 2-5 sick acutely ill patients every day. Tomorrow I finish with a medic student that I've been precepting for the past few months. Our EMS delivery is 100% ALS - you're subject to all of the BLS, so my student got to see maybe 5 patients that had potential to crash, and the rest were relatively stable.

Which medic do you want to treat you?

The comparison of medics in an all-ALS system vs a tiered system (King Co. Medic One, FDNY EMS) can be projected onto a volunteer (part time or occasional hours) vs a full time medic. It's essentially the same thing. You need many patient contacts to amass a "Rolodex" of pt. presentations, so that you can say "I've seen this before," and know what to do. Seasoned medics remark about being able to take a 10-20 second assessment of a patient from across the room, and reasonably say sick or not sick. That comes from treating a lot of patients. If you're shot, or have multi-trauma with a TBI from a significant MVC, do you want to be treated at Baltimore Shock Trauma, or some lvl 1 in a sparsely populated rural area that get a good trauma once a week or less? It's all the same thing.
 
I strongly doubt the workers will sway R/M.
 
Sorry, didn't read the thread and might have missed the point, but R/M San Diego is hiring??? Thanks guys
 
13.90 an hour! Big money there.
 
I'm curious what the median cost of living there
 
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