Monday, Jan 03, 2005 at 23:14
Thanks firie, you are right. The overtime is
well paid.
The problem is there is more than we want and if you don't go to work when they ring you for the third, fourth or fifth time on your day off someone goes without an ambulance.
The recent Public Accounts and Estimates Commitee review of the Auditor Generals Report of 1999 found that in the past four years since the Auditor General for Victoria told the government that Ambulance in Victoria was broken and needed fixing the average component of a Victorian Ambos wage made up of overtime has gone from 17% to 37%.
Do you realise how many hours spent at work on overtime - read how little time spent in the 4wd in the middle of nowhere or with the family - it takes to nearly double your annual salary?
That wouldn't be so bad if it was one or two Paramedics here and there doing it because they want to, but it's not it's nearly all of us. The guys in the smaller branches who do call 7 nights in a row (ie Work dayshifts 8 days straight and are on call the seven nights between) are in a worse state still.
If Paramedics in Victoria even halved the amount of overtime they work the system would grind to a halt. The response times would blow out as a result of reduced numbers of crews available to attend incidents and people would die.
I hate it. Yes the money is good but I haven't the time to spend it. Cod season opened in Dec and I had a couple of days fishing which I had to take annual leave to get. Since I got back on the 13th of Dec I have had 3 days off and I don't finish until next Friday on this stretch. If I hadn't taken ADO's to get next Saturday and Sunday off I wouldn't be off again until the 14th of Jan! That would have been 3 days off in a month. Lucky I could get the ADO's but that just stuffed someone elses weekend because I still have to be replaced and that's done on overtime too.
It's that bad that my 4y/o daughter thinks I am going to work just because my mobile phone rings.
Oh and if you think the wage is that good compare it to the other emergency
services in Victoria or to Nurses. Without shift penalties a Paramedic with 10 years experience in Victoria is on $19.89 an hour and is completely responsible for their clinical treatment and decision making. My wife is a nurse (they do a great job and I'm not criticising nurses here - merely drawing comparisons) who has 10 years experience, works in a controlled environment with a no lift policy to look after her back, who can't give drugs without a doctors authority, and earns $26 an hour.
Morale is as low in my station as the S.O. of 37 years has ever seen it.
Happy New Year to all my fellow EO members, may the next wreck I attend not be yours.
Pi$$ed off paramedic,
Dave
PS Sorry to have remained off topic. It's off my chest now. I'm done. Off to find another thread.
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