The (Often) Forgotten: EMS In America

[NUEMT]

So put your hands in your pockets and do nothing. Be a sheep. And hopefully the 9 dollar an hour emt, that you have no sympathy for, will have the sympathy to make your family member walk to the box in pain, sick, and desperate for some relief.


You too easily mistake a willingness to recognize what is wrong with EMS and attach some sort of bravado ridden honor to having manned up and moved. Hey! Good for you! Glad you were able to move ans make a career out of it. But at the end of the day, despite your( and i will say it again) INDIVIDUAL situation, you are still judged against the shady for profit low pay scams that exist in EMS.


And no one is coming at you dude. This is the internet.

 

[Chewy20]

So put your hands in your pockets and do nothing. Be a sheep. And hopefully the 9 dollar an hour emt, that you have no sympathy for, will have the sympathy to make your family member walk to the box in pain, sick, and desperate for some relief.


You too easily mistake a willingness to recognize what is wrong with EMS and attach some sort of bravado ridden honor to having manned up and moved. Hey! Good for you! Glad you were able to move ans make a career out of it. But at the end of the day, despite your( and i will say it again) INDIVIDUAL situation, you are still judged against the shady for profit low pay scams that exist in EMS.


And no one is coming at you dude. This is the internet.

Judged by who? Our community loves us, we have a great relationship with nurses, docs, fire and police.

Also, think I was the opposite of a sheep. I went ahead and took the iniciative to be make more, with greater opportunities. Think the sheep are the ones willing to work in crappy conditions.

Trust me there's no "honor" about me moving. I just simply say it because whinny people like you, think there is no way to ever make a career out of EMS and are stuck in some crappy service. I don't eat, sleep and breathe EMS. When I go to work I do my job well, after my shift you will never hear me talk about EMS in person.

AGAIN, promote change in your town or city. Just like our department did, and look what happened. You get respected by the community. Is that going to change the outlook on EMS as a whole? No but it may make your situation better. Crazy how that works, more and more people could potentially have a better situation.

Guarntee you that sitting on the computer complaining about how you are judged won't do squat. Last time replying to you, you have yet to come up with anything decent.

 

[NUEMT]

Judged by who? Our community loves us, we have a great relationship with nurses, docs, fire and police.

Also, think I was the opposite of a sheep. I went ahead and took the iniciative to be make more, with greater opportunities. Think the sheep are the ones willing to work in crappy conditions.

Trust me there's no "honor" about me moving. I just simply say it because whinny people like you, think there is no way to ever make a career out of EMS and are stuck in some crappy service. I don't eat, sleep and breathe EMS. When I go to work I do my job well, after my shift you will never hear me talk about EMS in person.

AGAIN, promote change in your town or city. Just like our department did, and look what happened. You get respected by the community. Is that going to change the outlook on EMS as a whole? No but it may make your situation better. Crazy how that works, more and more people could potentially have a better situation.

Guarntee you that sitting on the computer complaining about how you are judged won't do squat. Last time replying to you, you have yet to come up with anything decent.

Sir i remind you to read the forum rules. This post deserves no thoughtful reply.

And. Calm down.

 

[Chewy20]

Sir i remind you to read the forum rules. This post deserves no thoughtful reply.

And. Calm down.

Hahaha

 

[gotbeerz001]

I am afraid this guy is for real... Too consistent to be a troll.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CALEMT]

This thread is starting to give me cancer. I've been reading some of the replies on here and needless to say I've been biting my tongue. Couple points to some of the posts on here which will shadow what others have said.

A) No one is forcing you to work for minimum wage. Leave if you so desire, because for your spot theres 10 other people willing to work for minimum wage.

B) If you want change, sack up and take some personal initiative to effect change. Whether is approaching your supervisor, HR, or union rep for higher wages. It can even be what Chewy did and leave to greener pastures, theres nothing wrong with that. In the end you do whats best for you and your family. Complaining on the internet to a bunch of strangers is going to get you nowhere.

C) Want your EMS service to be more in the limelight like FD and PD? Again approach your sup with some PR ideas. Every year the fire dept. takes kids and does shop with a firefighter, there's toys for tots as well. The sheriff's dept. has coffee with a cop and shop with a cop. Some places have guns n hoses (sporting event between FD&PD) where proceeds go to a charity. My EMS service has a toy drive around November where we are out by Walmart collecting toys for kids for Christmas. All of these are good community public relations ideas. Again, personal initiative.

What most of us are saying is take some initiative to effect change. Theres nothing wrong with leaving a company for something thats more sustainable for raising a family. Do you plan on working for your EMS system till you retire 20, 25, even 30 years down the road? Or are you using your company/system as a stepping stone like most of the EMT's and medic's for something better?

 

[TransportJockey]

Sir i remind you to read the forum rules. This post deserves no thoughtful reply.

And. Calm down.

Actually, he provides a rational and well thought out counterpoint to your ridiculous argument.

 

[DrParasite]

So I do not have sympathy for the paramedic making $9 an hour, because no one is holding a gun to their head making them work for pennies. Was that to harsh for you?

while I don't have any sympathy either, it sickens me even more that their are paramedics willing to work for $9 an hour. I know I wouldn't, but then again, I am worth more than $9 an hour.

Unless you work for a tax paid system, which most do not. You can expect shady business and poor wages. Why? Like I said, they are there to make their pockets fatter. Just like any other career field, those companies will continue to pay you squat until there is no supply for their demand.

Baffles me that in other fields, people that are "forced" to work more shifts, are paid little etc. don't stick around long. They find a new job, or further their education. While people in EMS believe they entitled more just because they put on a uniform. It's a freaking job, stop getting butt hurt when people tell you other wise.

Which is exactly why I refuse to work for a for profit EMS agency. In NJ, NY & NC, I have worked for tax funded agencies. In fact, the last time I did work for a for profit entity was 15 years ago, I made $11.25 an hour, and only accepted that because I was also able to get 6 college credits out of the deal for a 3 month part time stint. But I digress

As you said, if you are paid poorly, forced to work more shifts, than find a new job, which often means leaving your old one. Your only worth what an employer is willing to pay. And if you don't like what you are being paid, you can either find a new job, find a new location, or find a new career. It's sad that if you leave a crappy job, there are 10 more willing to work for crappy conditions, but that is what has happened.

Why is EMS not a career, but a job? I think Chewy gives a pretty good set of reasons. I wanted to make it my career, but I couldn't raise a family on 11.25 an hour. So I got a job in a new field that is paying me close to $25 an hour, working day shift, and I doubt I will ever want to step foot on an ambulance ever again.

B) If you want change, sack up and take some personal initiative to effect change. Whether is approaching your supervisor, HR, or union rep for higher wages. It can even be what Chewy did and leave to greener pastures, theres nothing wrong with that. In the end you do whats best for you and your family. Complaining on the internet to a bunch of strangers is going to get you nowhere.

C) Want your EMS service to be more in the limelight like FD and PD? Again approach your sup with some PR ideas. Every year the fire dept. takes kids and does shop with a firefighter, there's toys for tots as well. The sheriff's dept. has coffee with a cop and shop with a cop. Some places have guns n hoses (sporting event between FD&PD) where proceeds go to a charity. My EMS service has a toy drive around November where we are out by Walmart collecting toys for kids for Christmas. All of these are good community public relations ideas. Again, personal initiative.

What most of us are saying is take some initiative to effect change. Theres nothing wrong with leaving a company for something thats more sustainable for raising a family. Do you plan on working for your EMS system till you retire 20, 25, even 30 years down the road? Or are you using your company/system as a stepping stone like most of the EMT's and medic's for something better?

I think what part of the issue is there are people who want to make EMS their career, similar to how the Fire Departments and Police Departments are seen as respectable careers, wile EMS is a stepping stone job.

One of the big problems is that EMS is almost always run with the fewest ambulances possible, and an ambulance that is not on a call is not making money, and as such, can be considered as not necessary. It takes a progressive agency head to budget for a PR supervisor / Public information officer, who can coordinate PR stuff and can work on justifying sending crews to these PR events (hint hint, cops don't work events for free, and neither do career firefighters, and yet some places want a dedicated EMS presence, but don't feel they should have to pay for it)

As many people have said, no one thinks about EMS until they need the ambulance. Despite the fact that there are more EMS calls than EMS fire calls (subtracting first responder calls, of course), people will protest a closed down fire station but will accept having empty ambulances or nor nearby ambulance.

BTW, the more "respect and recognition" EMS as a whole gets, the more likely you will see more tax funded agencies being formed (and people will see the benefits of not outsourcing it to a greedy for profit agency), the more EMS will be seen as able to stand on it's own in the public safety triangle, the respect (as an industry) EMS will get, and EMS will be able to transition from a stepping stone job to a 20-30 year career. But it will take progressive leadership both locally and nationally to get it done, and too many are not willing to do what is needed to get it done.

 

[DrParasite]

Just found this online, figured it was kind of appropriate http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/opini...letter-editor-open-letter-emergency-personnel

 

[Carlos Danger]

So put your hands in your pockets and do nothing. Be a sheep. And hopefully the 9 dollar an hour emt, that you have no sympathy for, will have the sympathy to make your family member walk to the box in pain, sick, and desperate for some relief.

First of all, being poorly compensated doesn't even begin to justify or necessarily lead to poor care, and many poorly paid EMS folks do a great job. So don't even start to equate poor compensation with poor care. To do so insults lots of really good people.

Second.......what exactly is it that you are expecting people to do, anyway? Should well-paid paramedics in Texas go on strike because EMS pays poorly in the Carolinas and many other places? And if the paramedics in TX did that, what do you think would happen? Would all the paramedics in NC and SC instantly get a 50% raise and then the paramedics in TX just go back to work and everything is grand? What exactly is the game plan and the expectation here?

Until EMS has a strong, nationwide union (and I don't see that happening any time soon - and even if it did, it doesn't guarantee high wages - I have thought about the fire service as a career option a few times and never did it because everywhere I lived, as a non-union flight nurse I made significantly more $$ and had just as good a schedule as the IAFF firefighters), AND until every EMS agency is funded by a well-to-do tax base (again, not gonna happen), there is going to be wide regional variation in compensation for EMS providers.

There are definitely PR things that EMS can do to improve it's visibility to the public. But whether that translates to increased compensation is really iffy.

As much as EMS compares itself to FD and PD and nursing.....it just isn't the same thing. It is certainly not less important, it is just different. There will always be different models and locales and tax bases and reimbursement rates, and those things, along with labor market supply:demand, is what drives wages. That isn't ever going to change.

So for now, the BEST thing that any individual EMT or paramedic can do for the profession (as far as wages are concerned), is to just look out for their own best interests. Seek out the best-compensating job that they can find, in the area that they need or want to live in. And try not to stay at lower-paying jobs any longer than necessary. But do you really thing people need to be TOLD to do that?

 

[Tigger]

There are definitely PR things that EMS can do to improve it's visibility to the public. But whether that translates to increased compensation is really iffy.

What we are doing right now (nothing) is not working.

Anecdotally, our district's tax increase failed due to a lack of visibility and community engagement. Tax increase would have equalled a raise for all, yet it was still very difficult to motivate our staff to get out there, that's not my job they say.

 

[Carlos Danger]

What we are doing right now (nothing) is not working.

Anecdotally, our district's tax increase failed due to a lack of visibility and community engagement. Tax increase would have equalled a raise for all, yet it was still very difficult to motivate our staff to get out there, that's not my job they say.

Very location-dependent. Most EMS providers work for private agencies and are not supported by tax dollars.

 

[Tigger]

Very location-dependent. Most EMS providers work for private agencies and are not supported by tax dollars.

Sure, PR isn't something that private companies will make a big deal out of. But there are many, many government employed EMS providers who are not making adequate wages and it doesn't help that as an industry we relish our silence. Not to mention all volunteer organizations that don't realize the importance of fighting for recognition.