Variale says FDNY treats EMS as subordinate despite medical call volume
Variale says low wages and high response times stem from FDNY failing to treat EMS as a co-equal uniformed branch. He says EMS responds to 1.6 million calls with about 25% of staffing while fire handles about 500,000 calls with 13,000 personnel, and EMS receives about 16% of the FDNY budget.
The problem is not just low wages.
The low wages and high response times are caused by the FDA's failure to properly recognize EMS as a co-equal branch of its uniformed emergency response system.
This is a dangerous to the public and discriminates against members of EMS who are the most diverse of the first responders in the 911 system.
The majority of the calls that both fire and EMS respond to are medical.
Let me say that again.
EMS and fire respond to the same emergencies.
85% of them are EMS calls and less than 2% are fire calls.
The majority of the calls that firefighters respond to are to provide medical care in non-fire medical emergencies.
While firefighters have less training and qualifications and provide lesser skills on these calls,
EMS responding to the same calls while providing advanced life-saving care are paid half that of firefighters.
On top of this, EMS with 25% of the staffing are forced to handle 1.6 million calls annually.
while fire with a staffing of 13,000 handled closer to 500,000 calls.
Meanwhile, fire receives approximately 84% of the FDNY's budget, while EMS is given approximately 16% of the budget.
This means that while we are paid half of what firefighters are paid to respond to emergencies, our fire counterparts enjoy the luxuries of firehouses, recreational facilities, state-of-the-art kitchens, and sleeping quarters.
While we in EMS are left on the street corners, forced to sit in a cab of an ambulance for 8 to 12 hours, responding back-to-back to emergencies, often without even opportunity to properly clean up or, God forbid, take a bathroom break.
Imagine the emotional and physical toll this has on members.
It is easy to understand how this stark difference in treatment negatively affects the morale and has EMS leaving the job.
We can't look away from the cause of the problems we are here to discuss.
It is not about EMS efficiency.
EMS are highly efficient and somehow miraculously are able to handle 10 times the core volume of fire.
It is not about traffic.
Traffic has always existed.
The problem is when you have to send a unit from Manhattan to Staten Island to respond to an emergency due to understaffing.
That is going to slow down responses, increase response times, and we can't blame EMS or look to EMS to continue to shoulder the solution.