NYC’S EMS WORKERS NEED MORE THAN APPLAUSE
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TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | MAY 8-MAY 14, 2020 15
BY WALTER S. ADLER
Over 14,000 New Yorkers
have died so far during the
COVID-19 pandemic. A lot
of bravery, heroism and inter
agency cooperation has
ensued for the worst four
weeks of the pandemic. The
virus is here and will be for
some time. My EMS brothers
and sisters will continue
to help hold the front lines.
But when the coughing
stops and the fevers cool,
will the inequities be addressed?
EMS workers need
profession-wide protections.
We need to be compensated
in parity with policemen
and with firefighters. We
need leadership to bring the
disparate sectors of the field
together in common purpose
to advocate for political action
to resuscitate this field.
For decades we have been
there at critical moments of
loss and terror, laying down
our lives for our patients
and their families.
NYC EMS workers have
been both separate and unequal
to all other city service
workers for years in
terms of wages, benefits
and working conditions.
Another challenge is the
awkward segregation of
the workforce into distinctive
sectors with competing
leadership. NYC’s 13,000
EMS workers are divided
into four distinct deployment
models with different
funding channels, varying
benefits, uniform colors, vehicle
colors, conditions and
levels of prestige — FDNY
911 Municipal, Voluntary
Hospital 911, Private Interfacility
Transport and Community
Volunteers.
Compared to firefighters
and policemen, EMS is
highly revenue generating.
While “saving lives,” EMS
is also a multimillion-dollar
industry. Every billable ambulance
ride brings the city,
private ambulance companies
or hospitals between
$500 to $4,000.
While providing significant
revenue, the disparity
in starting EMS salaries as
compared with Fire Suppression
and the NYPD is significantly
lower. The starting
NYPD salary is $42,500, and
within 5 ½ years raises to
$85,292 with the possibility
for additional income from
overtime. FDNY firefighters
begin at $43,904 and,
after 5 ½ years with fringe
pay, make $110,293.
Entry pay for an FDNY
EMT is $35,000 and, after
five years, is capped at
$50,000 or around $16.50/
hour. New hire transport
EMTs begin at the minimum
wage — $15.00 per hour only
recently up from $10.20 per
hour — and go up around $1
a year. Voluntary Hospital
(non-public hospitals) EMTs
start at $20 per hour and go
up $1 a year. When 14-year
FDNY EMT Veteran Yadira
Arroyo was murdered by a
crazed attacker — run over
by her own ambulance —
she was raising five children
on $48,142.
Entry-level FDNY Paramedics
make $48,287 and
after five years the base cap
is $65,226. An entry Voluntary
Hospital Paramedic
makes between $23 to $38/
hr job, with less security
and benefits, except in more
exclusive, higher-income
neighborhood hospital garages
like those serviced
by New York Presbyterian,
Northwell or Mt. Sinai. An
entry-level private transport
paramedic makes $23
to $25 per hour with no job
security or benefits at all.
EMS workers are the
frontline troops in medical
and public health emergencies
that are dangerous,
uncontrolled and always
unpredictable — where reinforcements
do not always
arrive or are not available,
where ambulances f lip, patients
assault and a virus
lurks.
FDNY EMS manages
around 66 percent of the
daily 911 call volume. Voluntary
Hospital EMS manages
over 33 percent of NYC
citywide total call volume.
This averages about
4,000 calls a day, 1.5 million
a year. The combined
response of Private Companies
and Community
Volunteers accounts for a
comparable number of nonemergent,
Interfacility or
emergency handled outside
the 911 dispatch.
We do a lot for this city.
We take great risks and we
do save and prolong lives.
We need proper masks. We
need proper wages. We need
proper unity.
With one united voice,
one Political Action Committee
of many small EMS
unions, one lobby we must
finally demand a parity
whose time has come.
Paramedic Walter S.
Adler is a 16-year veteran of
the Emergency Medical Services
and a native New Yorker.
He served the FDNY EMS
for four years and has served
overseas in Israel, Palestine,
Egypt, Haiti, Iraq and Syria.
He is currently a 911 Paramedic
with Montefiore EMS
and BronxCare EMS in the
Bronx.
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