jps385

Many of the voluntaries use vans for there BLS units. I don't believe Vinie's runs any BLS but all the CMC busses look alike now and the Brooklyn and Queens units have them. Its not that unussual for a brooklyn unit to transport a patient to a downtown Manhattan Hospital "by request" or as the closest fascility if your on a bridge or tunnel.

Yeah now you can get the shaft directly with out going through DC 37.

They don't sound too new!

The best example of this nonsense is the unconcious call type. 80% of the time its a drunk. It used to get an ALS and BLS unit. when both arrived and it was an intox the BLS would transport and the als would be back in service for a real als call. Then they decided this was innefficient so they now send only als. This way the medics get to spend their time in the subways with homeless drunk while BLS runs to arrests.

I wonder how many of the current EMS employees could pass it?

FDNY EMS not having enough medics is it own fault. They treat their EMS employees like second class citizens. Lousy stations and equipment, poor working conditions, five day work weeks, and constant mandations. This plus lousy pay. Many EMS supervisors run around like little dictators writing crews up for mundane offenses, and general making life miserable. In general anyone who can leaves for PD, FD, or a Hospital based system. Most hospitals pay starting a medic more than a senior ems Captain!! The only remotely apealing benefit is the 25 and out pension, but even that is based on a lousy salary with high employee contributions, and not many people can physically last 25 years working in the system. That having been said, a patient is better off receiving ALS care from one medic sooner than having to wait or not receive any als care at all. Anyone with experience in NYC can tell you that the call triage is pretty bad and BLS tends to get more ALS jobs than the medics anyway. The rantings of the EMS union are just their ussual attempt to complain about everything in hopes of someday doing something for their members.

The Wapingers contract is typical of towns not wanting to pay for the level of service they desire. The contract pays $200,000 a year for three dedicated ambulances in a district that does less than 2000 calls a year. If you do the math thats probably a half million dollar a year loss for the company. Alamo made it work by using the busses for other contracts, hence the disatisfaction. I'm not suprised Transcare is playing the same game I just thought it would take them longer to do so. It took them about a year to start using the New Rochelle buses for transports is the Bronx. Someday muncipalities will learn that you get what you pay for and stop accepting low ball contracts which result in poverty level pay for ems personel contracts turning over every few years.