McKagan says New York City government has failed EMS

Okay.

So my name is EMT Christopher McKagan.

I've been an FDNY EMT now for over 27 years.

And I take a little bit of problem with you saying EMS has failed.

The New York City government has failed EMS.

And that's a big problem because I have trained numerous people

in the streets and we can't keep them because they go to transit, they go to court officer because they make more money.

So.

We can't keep people.

We bring them in.

We train them.

They go into the academy.

And then when they come out, they stay for like maybe a month or two months or a year.

And then they're gone.

And then I have to train somebody else again.

I've done this like a thousand times.

If you don't fix the pay, how are we going to keep EMTs and paramedics in New York City?

And that's it, pretty much.

If somehow we don't get some sort of legal thing to go and fix this with OLR, this is just going to get worse.

And then people are going to die.

And there's nothing we can do about it unless we get the people that we need to man these ambulances.

I know already 20 people that are talking about retiring.

That means 10 ambulances are going to be down in New York City because we're not going to have nobody to run them because they're going to be retired.

If we don't fix this staffing issue and fix this money issue right away, New York City is going to head into a doomsday.

Thank you so much for your testimony.

I certainly do agree with you, and we made it more than clear to the administration that EMTs need more money, and they need uniform status, and they need to be respected more.

And when I echoed the sentiment of the unions who represent the EMS and EMTs,

they said that they were going to fail, but they have failed because the government has failed them.

So that was the full statement, and I agree with you 100%.

Thank you.

Next is Chowdhury Mahmood.

You may begin.