Emergency Medical Workers Deserve Pay Equity

In the article saying that, E.M.T.s hard to living in New York because the E.M.T.s is rising workload, paramedics and E.M.T.s regularly encounter hazards similar to those faced by the police and firefighters. A one of university study, using data from the Department of Labor, found that the injury rate of E.M.T.s and paramedics is three times higher than the national average for the general population.

This is the job of the roughly 4,1– E.M.T.s and paramedics of the F.D.N.Y. The job is getting tougher in New York, where medical calls, not fires, now make up most of the Fire Department’s responsibilities. In 2019, more than 80 percent of the 1.7 million incidents to which the department responded were medical, according to department officials. Also, the base salary for an E.M.T. is 450,604 after five years on the job. That base rises to $65,226 for paramedics, who receive more training and perform advanced lifesaving procedures like intubation. Though the pay is comparable to private ambulance services, it is significantly less than what the city’s firefighters earn. After five years on the job, a firefighter’s base pay is $85,292.

Such conditions, along with the disparity in pay and benefits, have prompted hundreds of E.M.T.s and paramedics to become firefighters in recent years. They get preferential treatment in hiring, and since 2013, 1,533 of them have become firefighters, according to city officials. The moveis considered a promotion, and has helped improve racial diversity in the city’s firefighting force. However, it has also left the ambulance service with fewer and less-experienced emergency medical personnel. New York’s emergency medical workers should be paid salaries and benefits far closer, if not equal to, the city’s firefighters. That’s what is owed the tiny force of people providing New Yorkers with critical medical care in their hour of need.