EMS is Doomed!

I know that the title of this article might be a bit alarmist but I have to speak up about some alarming trends I am seeing in EMS across the country. As other healthcare workers in the private sector make more and more money, we seem to have to get by on less and less. With most of us working multiple jobs in EMS just to survive, it doesn’t make much sense for us to continue.

I’m almost finished nursing school. Why? Because I couldn’t find a flexible schedule EMS job in my area that would just let me work nights and weekends on a PRN basis. Everything was shift work or didn’t offer any kind of regular shift. I looked at my skills and then looked at what I was getting paid for them and I couldn’t justify staying in that field, at least as a primary job.

1. Nurses work inside, out of the weather.
2. They get paid twice as much (or more) than a paramedic.
3. Nurses also seem to get a whole lot more respect in the medical community than EMS providers.
4. (I could keep going but you get the picture)

It was a no-brainer. I can still operate as a volunteer provider in my community and do what I love but I have to go where I’ll be most appreciated, right? But that’s just me. The rest of the providers will stick around. Then I got this email from a good friend and contributor to the show, Chris Black:

Hey man,

I don’t know how things will go in the next few weeks/months, but I’m seriously concidering leaving EMS. I’ve been with the same hospital for 10 years now and earn only $13.74/hr. We just found out that even though the hospital is WAY in the black we will only get a 3% raise this year and that our prescription drug benefits are to be cut dramatically.

I’ve seen and done things in the past 17 years that noone should ever have to see or do. A couple of years ago I had to actually use a pickaxe to remove a man’s lower extremities from a railroad crossing(body part recovery). I have scraped up multiple brains and put them into ziploc bags. I have done this all for pennies and all the while had to work a second or even third job and loose spending time with my wife and kids.

I may have the oppurtunity to work for the local phone company either installing phones or network systems at a starting pay of $23/hr. It is shameful that as a paramedic I can’t come close to what I can as a telephone man. What’s more is that with the phone company my insurance will be paid in full by the company and I will work 8-4 weekdays only. EMS is going to have to change in America or is is going to DIE!

Get ready for a rant!

If people like Chris and other experienced providers leave the EMS field for greener pastures simply because the system won’t pay us a living wage, then we are headed back to the days of the scoop and run hearse ambulance.

The American health care system is broken and there is a lot of talk about how to fix it. Nowhere in any proposal I’ve seen or heard about, has there been any mention of the abysmal wages paid to our professional rescuers on the street. We need to keep this issue on the table in any public health discussion. Our government has no problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars each year protecting the interests of oil companies — why can’t they take that money and spend it on the health care and services needed here at home!

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Jamie, the Podmedic