This is not a personal attack on anyone and before you scald me please remember that I DO volunteer in the EMS agency (7 years) besides working an EMS job. I can’t speak for rest of the country because I haven’t experienced much short of few areas I mention later on but based on our system and billing and how we try to stay afloat here are my personal observations:
Think about this one: you go to school for 6 months to get your welding license and start working. Than after two years of welding you go to a special welding academy where you spend one year learning new stuff and you become a master welder. Now it's time to get a job but imagine that all the work you did until now and will do doesn't pay a dime. All you got is the warm and fuzzy feeling inside. But imagine working a building shoulder to shoulder next to another welder and realizing he is making $30 and hour for the same work you do for free. That's kind of what volunteer EMT to Paramedic path looks like. Now imagine how respectable free is in today’s world? The value of free is losing big time. Free means a pass while paying for something means "Oh I messed up I better not do it again". Yuppie goes up the trail on a 3 days hike with half a day worth of supplies and than calls 911 so you get him off the mountain. Free of charge and next weekend he will call again, asking especially for you by the first name because you were so fabulous.. You hit him with $10000 bill and he surely will think twice about placing that call. And that bill can be used to pay you, your members, your fuel costs and buy those supplies you need but been borrowing from the hospital.
And now here comes the statement that is very unpopular: EMS and Fire Services should be a paid organization. I'm not saying bill for fires but bill for medical portion or sar and pay your members. Screw the region that can't afford their own agency. You see how quickly station opens up and money gets found when someone dies because local govt was too stingy to pay for the ambulance service. But as long as there is someone willing to do it for free than local govt doesn’t care much. I saw volunteer companies in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Vermont and you know what? I rather drive myself to the hospital. I saw reports given by EMT in VA emergency rooms and I think my regular drunks can give better ones. Not to say that there are not some great volunteers out there but still in order to get gaps filled anyone can be put on the truck. You love doing what you doing because you end up doing it for free and people always say it is a perfect job to do what you love. So why not get paid for it? We are our worst enemies preventing ourselves from getting a paid position in our dream jobs. Why a county can afford paid Law Enforcement Agency but EMS/Fire will be the volunteers? Screw that: pay me and you will have 24/7/365 coverage without mutual aid from county over because we are run down due to no personnel. On top of that clowns in your local organization who are there because bodies were needed now would not pass the screening and your agency would be as professional and uniformed. EMS/Fire is not child play charity it is a profession. It is a job that should be treated with respect and like with every job you should get paid for it.
That’s just my 2 cents.
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