Ambulance crews deserve respect
For staff of the National Ambulance Service the coverage has been particularly insulting as they struggle to deliver one of the most vital of public services in the face of staff and budget cutbacks across the health and emergency services.
Despite being trained and licensed under the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council as healthcare professionals (advanced training can take up to five years) paramedics are not even recognised as a grade by their own employer, the HSE or within the Department of Health. Most paramedics work a 12-hour shift on days or nights, though all calls must be responded to up until their finishing time, which can extend a shift by many hours.
Within the cash and resource-starved health service, more and more demands are placed on frontline paramedics who must deal with everything from pre-birth to death, and at a level of professional care equivalent to that available in a hospital.
On any shift a paramedic may climb into a car wreck to render life-saving emergency care; reverse a heroin overdose in a derelict building; stop a child convulsing, or restart someone’s heart in front of their family. And we face these challenges everyday in the knowledge that there is no occupational compensation scheme for our families should we suffer a fatality in the course of their work.
NASRA would welcome a detailed media examination of paramedics’ pay and conditions, including issues such as sick leave, retirement age and transfer policy (of which there is none).
Perhaps, then, the media, the public, and even the politicians might fully appreciate the reality of the working lives of paramedics and the genuine public service that we deliver 24/7, and 365 days of the year.
Michael Dixon
ChairmanNational Ambulance Service Representative Association
Co Kildare
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