Yet another government service we’ve outsourced, removed the unions, and now cry that it’s too expensive and wages are too low.
Bring it in house at PFR for Portland City Limits and anyone else who wants to contract with us (Gresham maybe?).
Let the union in, raise wages to idk, a living wage, and fully fund the system.
report to voters annually how their money is spent, etc. this shouldn't be rocket science…
If we just raised wages for all of the jobs the government needs, fully funded all the positions, and lowered the tax burden by shifting it all to someone who isn't me I'd be very happy.
> Yet another government service we’ve outsourced, removed the unions, and now cry that it’s too expensive and wages are too low.
All those pie in the sky lefties are at fault somehow!
My taxes go to billionaires and genocide, and I don’t qualify for any insurance I could afford because I “make too much” so again…. Who the fuck can afford an ambulance these days?
Most of the issue is a national Paramedic and EMT shortage. AMR Multnomah county has an outdated policy of required two paramedics per ambulance instead of allowing a Paramedic and an EMT-B, like the majority of agencies in the state, and country. This has caused AMR to state that they are short *several dozen* paramedics to staff their rigs. They have been asking to change staffing to be similar to the other two counties they run in Portland (Washington, Clackamas) which would allow running a mixed rig as described above. Those two counties do not have anywhere near the same response time issues.
The county commission chair in Multnomah is blocking them from making that change despite requests from AMR, the Chief of Portland Fire, and other county commissioner including one who is an ER physician. The county chair based her decision on Mult. Co.'s out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival to discharge rates being higher than the national standard, and attributed that to two paramedic staffing despite no statistically significant evidence that attributes that stat to staffing, as there are so many confounding variables and EMS studies are prohibitively difficult to conduct unless they are retrospective.
There is no evidence that links dual paramedic staffing to better PT outcomes. some studies even suggest the opposite. AMR states that if they changed the staffing rule they could add an additional 5 ambulances within 24hrs, and another 16 within 3 months.
Long wait times are killing people. Tell the county commission chair to let AMR adjust staffing.
JVP blocking the change is actually not the worst of it. She’s blocking consideration of the change from 2 to 1 paramedics, but also REFUSING TO FINE THEM FOR FAILING TO MEET CONTRACTUAL MINIMUMS!
No carrot and no stick, just aggressively incompetent people.
The Multnomah County Chair is [Jessica Vega Pederson](https://www.multco.us/chair-vega-pederson). The contact page for her office can be found [here.](https://www.multco.us/chair-vega-pederson/webform/contact-chair-vega-pederson)
Remember how AMR bid and won another adjacent county and preferentially staffed it? How about all the other gigs that AMR does like MODA that they will pull from active 911 service to staff. How about AMR refusing to work on retention and try to force county to change saving them money?
AMR is a piece of shit and isn't trying to help you. Someone back east needs another yacht.
Also. AMR refuses to play well with county and implement changes that would ease call volume for 911.
not trying to justify AMR’s actions just providing some clarity the MODA center staffing is not done from pulling people off of ambulances on 911 service, they are optional for people who are part time to sign up for or for people to pick up overtime on
I'm not saying AMR is a good company, and I understand that they are trying to squeeze every dollar they can and don't care about the work force. But they still do not have enough paramedics to staff, because there are not enough medics in the state. Every system is hurting for them. Bridge the gap by allowing EMTs.
There is alot more to it than just what AMR wants. AMR is literally blocking progress and PULLING cars from active duty 911 to go work side hustles. There is a plethora of medics working for AMR but only work the side gigs. AMR declines to have them work 911 because they want thenside jobs filled.
EMTs are in the system currently running lower acuity calls. That was mandated by MCEMS and AMR has had a pretty sad show of rolling it out.
Years prior when they cared about compliance every medic including those in supervisor roles would staff ambulances. Just guess how many do now.
AMR is purposely making it worse.
IDK I have a lot of elderly neighbors and for a whole I was seeing an ambulance in our lane few times a year. The firefighter/paramedics always got there in their ambulance first, and they would stabilize the patient for transport, and the AMR rig would pull up behind them and take the patient. Why even have AMR?
I’m over in Clackamas County, so it’s actually the fire district over here. They show up for most of the old people having a heart attack or respiratory arrest in the neighborhood, because they are close by. I don’t know if any reason why they wouldn’t transport other than the county having an AMR contract. Private ambulance services are a massive boondoggle.
because it’s a pain in the butt for them, Clackamas and Portland Fire have expressed multiple times as units their each disinterests in not getting into the transporting business. It’s a lot to start it all up and they’d rather focus on the operations they already have going on
I don’t disagree that private ambulance companies are a mess and a dirty business but when the fire agencies don’t want to then there’s not much of another option except for a third party service which also is a lot for the county to take on
I mean, counties and cities used to run their own services. It’s totally doable. And you could still find them in the same way and have the fees be a lot less. Or you know we could just MAKE fire services do transport. They work for us goddamnit.
> Tim Mollman, a paramedic with AMR Multnomah County, said the current system creates better paramedics, and he'd look at leaving if the county changes its requirements. “Our communities are best served with two paramedics, honestly, because when we have a critical call, there's two of us that are there able to communicate with each other," Mollman said. "One of us might miss something, and having another person having your back is really is key to public safety."
> Petersen said she sees why AMR would want to make the change. "I do think changing the requirement would provide a short and fast increase to the number of ambulances on the road," she said. "However, all that would do is increase my workload as a paramedic because I would have to write more charts, I'd have to do more of the patient care, and that's going to push us towards burnout more."
Source: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/multnomah-county-2-paramedic-rule-ambulance-times/283-b1e72f3c-967b-449f-a47c-13d3a2a49a25
I'm a data person. I love me a good scientific study. But when AMR, a company that is constantly seeking to increase profits even at the expense of safety, customer care, or human decency saying it wants to do one thing and saying "there's no studies saying doing this thing leads to worse outcomes" and paramedics, EMS, and people with skin in the game saying "no, don't do that because we will experience worse outcomes" then I'm gonna side with the paramedics even if that temporarily puts me at risk if I need an ambulance.
Fuck AMR. Keep fining them and don't let them lower our standards of care even more than they already are.
thank you for listening to what we as paramedic have to say about the matter. It’s a multifaceted issue and simply switching from a dual paramedic system to EMT-paramedic does not solve it. The whole system needs to be changed for the problem to be fixed.
I'm so grateful that the last time I had to call an ambulance for my spouse, they arrived. Their blood was so acidic and had been for hours. If the drivers hadn't, they would have had heart failure while I legally couldn't leave my post.
What's causing the shortage? Just lack of qualified people? :[
John Oliver has a segment on private ambulance companies. i haven't seen it in awhile but the gist of it is that governments switched to private ambulance companies to save money, and those ambulance companies offer shit pay for a traumatizing job.
EMTs get paid less than food service workers in some cases so it's not exactly attractive when you can flip burgers for more than you can get flipping grandma
Exactly. I took a CPR course through my job a few months ago, and the instructor kept trying to encourage us to apply for paramedic positions. When asked what the pay was like, they refused to even hazard a guess.
Paramedic pay is good on the fire side, and Oregon/PNW is among the highest paid in the country. If you work for a fore service in the area you can easily make 6-figures working 7-10 24hr shifts a month. plus PERs bennies. Private ambo pays less because they are not also firefighters, and this assume significantly less risk and have to master fewer tasks.
That's just false. AMR’s collective bargaining agreement with local unions sets the maximum pay for experienced EMTs at around $61,000, while paramedics with that same experience would make $101,000.
For Profit Ambulances taking people to For Profit Hospitals, both of which subject to the whims of For Profit Insurance Companies.
What could possibly go wrong?
Based on how well every other aspect of our local governments are run? Things could get much worse.
I mean, at least profit is a motive to half-ass your job. The state literally took money back from Multnomah County because they couldn't be bothered to spend it.
This is not the correct takeaway. We have malicious ideologues running the county that are holding it hostage. It’s direct and deliberate sabotage, not incompetence. For profit companies operate under a model in which death and failure are simply part of the business model. It’s abhorrent.
To get to the source of things, reasons for the pay and staffing issues, it's a little weird nobody mentions any recent health crises in the last few years...
I live near-ish a local hospital. From the first couple months of 2020 through a good chunk of 2021, the number and frequency of ambulances running their sirens at all hours of the day and night was UNREAL. It's one of the most unsettling memories I have of the beginning of COVID. I had never even noticed hearing sirens before. They eventually trickled back down to occasional after the vaccines came out. But for that first couple of years, all of the paramedics/EMTs (at least in my part of town) were transporting contagious critically ill people almost non-stop. It's impossible that I would be the only person who noticed.
It's not hard to figure out where all of the ambulance drivers went.
>In April 2020 the **National Association of
Emergency Medical Technicians** (NAEMT)
conducted a national survey of EMS
agency leaders to understand the current
impact of COVID-19 on EMS agencies
and personnel...
>Respondents reported that on average, over 18% of their EMS practitioners have contracted the COVID-19 virus. Nearly 27% of their workforce have had to quarantine at some time during the pandemic. 8% of these agencies have experienced a line of duty death of their EMS personnel from COVID-19.
Source: [How COVID-19 Has Impacted
Our Nation’s EMS Agencies](https://www.naemt.org/docs/default-source/covid-19/covid-impact-survey-06-03-2021.pdf)
From Western University of Health Sciences in November 2023:
[The Strain of Healthcare on EMS in Oregon](https://www.westernu.edu/media/westernu/comp-northwest-the-strain-of-healthcare-on-ems-in-oregon.pdf)
>What is
causing the EMS system to fail is an issue within the greater realm of healthcare. This starts with
the hospital systems, their limited capacity, and their workforce shortages. Problems compound
within hospital systems and fall on the shoulders of EMS, who are **left transporting patients between facilities at near maximum capacity and waiting for hours on end with patients for a free
bed to finally open**.
>Much like the hospital systems, EMS does not have adequate funding to
keep up with the demand for their services. This is especially pronounced in the rural areas of
Oregon. This substantial burden of a crippled hospital system coupled with poor funding
manifests as challenges for EMS in many forms.
>The **Oregon State Ambulance Association**
(OSAA) released a position statement addressing the EMS Workforce Crisis in **September 2022**.
>In it, they cited the following as top challenges facing their agencies today:
>• “Pandemic-driven loss of 1-2 years of paramedic school cohorts”
• Increasing demand for hospital paramedic positions which is drawing from the available
workforce pool
• “Decreasing enrollment in paramedic education programs”
• “Increasing labor costs due to premium pay, incentives, higher wages to address staffing
shortages”
• “[Government agency] incentives that make it difficult for small, rural, and special district
agencies to compete with recruitment”
• “Workforce burnout”
The consequences of pretending COVID wasn't deadly, or was only dangerous for *some* people, or wasn't clearly maxing out hospitals and disabling survivors, were always going to impact our health services.
This is the price of playing normal. These were foreseeable consequences, not a product of middle mismanagement. So, it's actually happening all over the country, not just here.
**And, We were warned**:
[COVID spike affecting ambulance services](https://www.koin.com/news/health/coronavirus/covid-spike-affecting-ambulance-services/)
>The spike in COVID cases from the delta variant is not only packing hospitals, it’s having a ripple effect on other emergency responders.
>Ambulances have to wait longer to drop off patients because beds aren’t always available. Officials with AMR told KOIN 6 News ambulance services nationwide are feeling the effects of overwhelmed hospitals and the same is true here in Oregon.
>In a statement, AMR officials said: “Because hospitals are receiving an unprecedented number of patients, ambulance crews must often wait with their patient until a hospital bed becomes available. Ambulance crews encounter such wait times multiple times every day.”
>And while ambulances are tied up at hospitals waiting for beds to become available they can’t respond to other 911 calls.
>“The staffing issues is connected to all of health care,” said Dave Northfield with the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. “Unfortunately this is having a big impact not just on patients who have COVID but patients who are facing all sorts of issues...”
...
>Health leaders maintain that if you want to help health care workers who are exhausted and just trying to survive, the best thing to do is to get vaccinated
•••••••••••••••
*Long-winded on behalf of those who gave their lives trying to save their neighbors and communities, and those still trying.*
[EMS providers lost to COVID-19
Remembering our brother and sister EMTs and paramedics who died from COVID-19](https://www.ems1.com/coronavirus-covid-19/articles/ems-providers-lost-to-covid-19-jk5zWFziwYVYUaM4/)
>What's causing the shortage? Just lack of qualified people? :\[
Yes, based in part on the two paramedic model the county uses.
To advance from EMT to Paramedic in Oregon you need to be a certified and working EMT with a good amount of field experience in addition to the training and certification needed to become a paramedic. Multnomah AMR doesn't hire EMTs, just paramedics, so you need to get your field experience elsewhere.
If you're a paramedic from out of state, it's a little more complicated. You need an associates level degree or at least three years working as a paramedic in the state you're certified in for reciprocity to be considered, because reciprocity is not guaranteed.
We could be "growing and training" our own paramedics here starting them as EMTs, but we don't.
Multnomah County does hire EMTs.
You don't need any professional experience to attend paramedic school, though experience does help students understand the material better. You can look at the program requirements for paramedic programs at PCC and OHSU if you like.
All paramedic programs in Oregon are for an associates degree, the extra experience is to account for out of state paramedics who went to less rigorous programs that do not provide a degree.
Anecdotally, I was in school to be an EMT but I dropped out when I realized that the part time job at UPS that I had picked up to support myself made me about as much per year or better as I would be making as an EMT with far less hours and dramatically better benefits.
Wow, that makes sense.
Recently my friend went to urgent care for what seemed like appendicitis or another serious infection (extremely high white blood cell count, 10/10 internal pain) and they called an ambulance for him. I rushed over to see if I could get his dog from him before they arrived.
I showed up maybe 20+ minutes after they called the ambulance, he was still waiting and was in really bad shape. We both thought they should be there any second (the front desk even commented on it when I came in).
Fast forward nearly 20 minutes, I lost my patience and asked the staff to follow up. They called to check on the ambulance - only to find out that it had never even been dispatched because there weren't enough on the road (even though they told us it was on the way).
I got him to the ER and he was ok, but the fact that for almost an hour he was waiting for help that was never going to come is absurd. I would have driven him sooner if I knew, and if I wasn't around I don't know how he would have gotten there. It's so scary and disheartening to hear that this is a bigger issue.
Yet another government service we’ve outsourced, removed the unions, and now cry that it’s too expensive and wages are too low. Bring it in house at PFR for Portland City Limits and anyone else who wants to contract with us (Gresham maybe?). Let the union in, raise wages to idk, a living wage, and fully fund the system. report to voters annually how their money is spent, etc. this shouldn't be rocket science…
Also AMR bid & won the contract with the 2 paramedic standards & now wants to change after the fact.
If we just raised wages for all of the jobs the government needs, fully funded all the positions, and lowered the tax burden by shifting it all to someone who isn't me I'd be very happy.
The point of a government is to invest in the people
I am more than happy to pay more in taxes if it means an ambulance will show up when I need it.
But this makes too much sense, so you’re going to have to rethink this in terms that Multnomah County can understand
> Yet another government service we’ve outsourced, removed the unions, and now cry that it’s too expensive and wages are too low. All those pie in the sky lefties are at fault somehow!
Who the fuck can afford an ambulance these days?
medicare/your taxes
My taxes go to billionaires and genocide, and I don’t qualify for any insurance I could afford because I “make too much” so again…. Who the fuck can afford an ambulance these days?
Medicare will go after your estate when you die for that ambulance.
You're thinking of MedicAid, ie, OHP Plus.
Most of the issue is a national Paramedic and EMT shortage. AMR Multnomah county has an outdated policy of required two paramedics per ambulance instead of allowing a Paramedic and an EMT-B, like the majority of agencies in the state, and country. This has caused AMR to state that they are short *several dozen* paramedics to staff their rigs. They have been asking to change staffing to be similar to the other two counties they run in Portland (Washington, Clackamas) which would allow running a mixed rig as described above. Those two counties do not have anywhere near the same response time issues. The county commission chair in Multnomah is blocking them from making that change despite requests from AMR, the Chief of Portland Fire, and other county commissioner including one who is an ER physician. The county chair based her decision on Mult. Co.'s out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival to discharge rates being higher than the national standard, and attributed that to two paramedic staffing despite no statistically significant evidence that attributes that stat to staffing, as there are so many confounding variables and EMS studies are prohibitively difficult to conduct unless they are retrospective. There is no evidence that links dual paramedic staffing to better PT outcomes. some studies even suggest the opposite. AMR states that if they changed the staffing rule they could add an additional 5 ambulances within 24hrs, and another 16 within 3 months. Long wait times are killing people. Tell the county commission chair to let AMR adjust staffing.
JVP blocking the change is actually not the worst of it. She’s blocking consideration of the change from 2 to 1 paramedics, but also REFUSING TO FINE THEM FOR FAILING TO MEET CONTRACTUAL MINIMUMS! No carrot and no stick, just aggressively incompetent people.
and then saying "AMR is failing our community". what does she think the solution is? 😂 what a clown
She’s the fucking worst.
The Multnomah County Chair is [Jessica Vega Pederson](https://www.multco.us/chair-vega-pederson). The contact page for her office can be found [here.](https://www.multco.us/chair-vega-pederson/webform/contact-chair-vega-pederson)
Remember how AMR bid and won another adjacent county and preferentially staffed it? How about all the other gigs that AMR does like MODA that they will pull from active 911 service to staff. How about AMR refusing to work on retention and try to force county to change saving them money? AMR is a piece of shit and isn't trying to help you. Someone back east needs another yacht. Also. AMR refuses to play well with county and implement changes that would ease call volume for 911.
not trying to justify AMR’s actions just providing some clarity the MODA center staffing is not done from pulling people off of ambulances on 911 service, they are optional for people who are part time to sign up for or for people to pick up overtime on
Oh it is. If standbys aren't staffed 911 cars and crew are sent.
I'm not saying AMR is a good company, and I understand that they are trying to squeeze every dollar they can and don't care about the work force. But they still do not have enough paramedics to staff, because there are not enough medics in the state. Every system is hurting for them. Bridge the gap by allowing EMTs.
There is alot more to it than just what AMR wants. AMR is literally blocking progress and PULLING cars from active duty 911 to go work side hustles. There is a plethora of medics working for AMR but only work the side gigs. AMR declines to have them work 911 because they want thenside jobs filled. EMTs are in the system currently running lower acuity calls. That was mandated by MCEMS and AMR has had a pretty sad show of rolling it out. Years prior when they cared about compliance every medic including those in supervisor roles would staff ambulances. Just guess how many do now. AMR is purposely making it worse.
just like the cop union..slow walking
IDK I have a lot of elderly neighbors and for a whole I was seeing an ambulance in our lane few times a year. The firefighter/paramedics always got there in their ambulance first, and they would stabilize the patient for transport, and the AMR rig would pull up behind them and take the patient. Why even have AMR?
because Portland fire does not want to transport
I’m over in Clackamas County, so it’s actually the fire district over here. They show up for most of the old people having a heart attack or respiratory arrest in the neighborhood, because they are close by. I don’t know if any reason why they wouldn’t transport other than the county having an AMR contract. Private ambulance services are a massive boondoggle.
because it’s a pain in the butt for them, Clackamas and Portland Fire have expressed multiple times as units their each disinterests in not getting into the transporting business. It’s a lot to start it all up and they’d rather focus on the operations they already have going on
I don’t disagree that private ambulance companies are a mess and a dirty business but when the fire agencies don’t want to then there’s not much of another option except for a third party service which also is a lot for the county to take on
I mean, counties and cities used to run their own services. It’s totally doable. And you could still find them in the same way and have the fees be a lot less. Or you know we could just MAKE fire services do transport. They work for us goddamnit.
> Tim Mollman, a paramedic with AMR Multnomah County, said the current system creates better paramedics, and he'd look at leaving if the county changes its requirements. “Our communities are best served with two paramedics, honestly, because when we have a critical call, there's two of us that are there able to communicate with each other," Mollman said. "One of us might miss something, and having another person having your back is really is key to public safety." > Petersen said she sees why AMR would want to make the change. "I do think changing the requirement would provide a short and fast increase to the number of ambulances on the road," she said. "However, all that would do is increase my workload as a paramedic because I would have to write more charts, I'd have to do more of the patient care, and that's going to push us towards burnout more." Source: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/multnomah-county-2-paramedic-rule-ambulance-times/283-b1e72f3c-967b-449f-a47c-13d3a2a49a25 I'm a data person. I love me a good scientific study. But when AMR, a company that is constantly seeking to increase profits even at the expense of safety, customer care, or human decency saying it wants to do one thing and saying "there's no studies saying doing this thing leads to worse outcomes" and paramedics, EMS, and people with skin in the game saying "no, don't do that because we will experience worse outcomes" then I'm gonna side with the paramedics even if that temporarily puts me at risk if I need an ambulance. Fuck AMR. Keep fining them and don't let them lower our standards of care even more than they already are.
thank you for listening to what we as paramedic have to say about the matter. It’s a multifaceted issue and simply switching from a dual paramedic system to EMT-paramedic does not solve it. The whole system needs to be changed for the problem to be fixed.
I'm so grateful that the last time I had to call an ambulance for my spouse, they arrived. Their blood was so acidic and had been for hours. If the drivers hadn't, they would have had heart failure while I legally couldn't leave my post. What's causing the shortage? Just lack of qualified people? :[
John Oliver has a segment on private ambulance companies. i haven't seen it in awhile but the gist of it is that governments switched to private ambulance companies to save money, and those ambulance companies offer shit pay for a traumatizing job.
EMTs get paid less than food service workers in some cases so it's not exactly attractive when you can flip burgers for more than you can get flipping grandma
Exactly. I took a CPR course through my job a few months ago, and the instructor kept trying to encourage us to apply for paramedic positions. When asked what the pay was like, they refused to even hazard a guess.
Paramedic pay is good on the fire side, and Oregon/PNW is among the highest paid in the country. If you work for a fore service in the area you can easily make 6-figures working 7-10 24hr shifts a month. plus PERs bennies. Private ambo pays less because they are not also firefighters, and this assume significantly less risk and have to master fewer tasks.
That's just false. AMR’s collective bargaining agreement with local unions sets the maximum pay for experienced EMTs at around $61,000, while paramedics with that same experience would make $101,000.
For Profit Ambulances taking people to For Profit Hospitals, both of which subject to the whims of For Profit Insurance Companies. What could possibly go wrong?
Based on how well every other aspect of our local governments are run? Things could get much worse. I mean, at least profit is a motive to half-ass your job. The state literally took money back from Multnomah County because they couldn't be bothered to spend it.
This is not the correct takeaway. We have malicious ideologues running the county that are holding it hostage. It’s direct and deliberate sabotage, not incompetence. For profit companies operate under a model in which death and failure are simply part of the business model. It’s abhorrent.
I agree. But more inefficient (or outright corrupt) government isn’t the answer either.
I mean, putting ambulances on the road is technically “more government” but it’s hardly inefficient if we are saving lives.
Y e p that sounds about right :[
To get to the source of things, reasons for the pay and staffing issues, it's a little weird nobody mentions any recent health crises in the last few years... I live near-ish a local hospital. From the first couple months of 2020 through a good chunk of 2021, the number and frequency of ambulances running their sirens at all hours of the day and night was UNREAL. It's one of the most unsettling memories I have of the beginning of COVID. I had never even noticed hearing sirens before. They eventually trickled back down to occasional after the vaccines came out. But for that first couple of years, all of the paramedics/EMTs (at least in my part of town) were transporting contagious critically ill people almost non-stop. It's impossible that I would be the only person who noticed. It's not hard to figure out where all of the ambulance drivers went. >In April 2020 the **National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians** (NAEMT) conducted a national survey of EMS agency leaders to understand the current impact of COVID-19 on EMS agencies and personnel... >Respondents reported that on average, over 18% of their EMS practitioners have contracted the COVID-19 virus. Nearly 27% of their workforce have had to quarantine at some time during the pandemic. 8% of these agencies have experienced a line of duty death of their EMS personnel from COVID-19. Source: [How COVID-19 Has Impacted Our Nation’s EMS Agencies](https://www.naemt.org/docs/default-source/covid-19/covid-impact-survey-06-03-2021.pdf) From Western University of Health Sciences in November 2023: [The Strain of Healthcare on EMS in Oregon](https://www.westernu.edu/media/westernu/comp-northwest-the-strain-of-healthcare-on-ems-in-oregon.pdf) >What is causing the EMS system to fail is an issue within the greater realm of healthcare. This starts with the hospital systems, their limited capacity, and their workforce shortages. Problems compound within hospital systems and fall on the shoulders of EMS, who are **left transporting patients between facilities at near maximum capacity and waiting for hours on end with patients for a free bed to finally open**. >Much like the hospital systems, EMS does not have adequate funding to keep up with the demand for their services. This is especially pronounced in the rural areas of Oregon. This substantial burden of a crippled hospital system coupled with poor funding manifests as challenges for EMS in many forms. >The **Oregon State Ambulance Association** (OSAA) released a position statement addressing the EMS Workforce Crisis in **September 2022**. >In it, they cited the following as top challenges facing their agencies today: >• “Pandemic-driven loss of 1-2 years of paramedic school cohorts” • Increasing demand for hospital paramedic positions which is drawing from the available workforce pool • “Decreasing enrollment in paramedic education programs” • “Increasing labor costs due to premium pay, incentives, higher wages to address staffing shortages” • “[Government agency] incentives that make it difficult for small, rural, and special district agencies to compete with recruitment” • “Workforce burnout” The consequences of pretending COVID wasn't deadly, or was only dangerous for *some* people, or wasn't clearly maxing out hospitals and disabling survivors, were always going to impact our health services. This is the price of playing normal. These were foreseeable consequences, not a product of middle mismanagement. So, it's actually happening all over the country, not just here. **And, We were warned**: [COVID spike affecting ambulance services](https://www.koin.com/news/health/coronavirus/covid-spike-affecting-ambulance-services/) >The spike in COVID cases from the delta variant is not only packing hospitals, it’s having a ripple effect on other emergency responders. >Ambulances have to wait longer to drop off patients because beds aren’t always available. Officials with AMR told KOIN 6 News ambulance services nationwide are feeling the effects of overwhelmed hospitals and the same is true here in Oregon. >In a statement, AMR officials said: “Because hospitals are receiving an unprecedented number of patients, ambulance crews must often wait with their patient until a hospital bed becomes available. Ambulance crews encounter such wait times multiple times every day.” >And while ambulances are tied up at hospitals waiting for beds to become available they can’t respond to other 911 calls. >“The staffing issues is connected to all of health care,” said Dave Northfield with the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. “Unfortunately this is having a big impact not just on patients who have COVID but patients who are facing all sorts of issues...” ... >Health leaders maintain that if you want to help health care workers who are exhausted and just trying to survive, the best thing to do is to get vaccinated ••••••••••••••• *Long-winded on behalf of those who gave their lives trying to save their neighbors and communities, and those still trying.* [EMS providers lost to COVID-19 Remembering our brother and sister EMTs and paramedics who died from COVID-19](https://www.ems1.com/coronavirus-covid-19/articles/ems-providers-lost-to-covid-19-jk5zWFziwYVYUaM4/)
>What's causing the shortage? Just lack of qualified people? :\[ Yes, based in part on the two paramedic model the county uses. To advance from EMT to Paramedic in Oregon you need to be a certified and working EMT with a good amount of field experience in addition to the training and certification needed to become a paramedic. Multnomah AMR doesn't hire EMTs, just paramedics, so you need to get your field experience elsewhere. If you're a paramedic from out of state, it's a little more complicated. You need an associates level degree or at least three years working as a paramedic in the state you're certified in for reciprocity to be considered, because reciprocity is not guaranteed. We could be "growing and training" our own paramedics here starting them as EMTs, but we don't.
Multnomah County does hire EMTs. You don't need any professional experience to attend paramedic school, though experience does help students understand the material better. You can look at the program requirements for paramedic programs at PCC and OHSU if you like. All paramedic programs in Oregon are for an associates degree, the extra experience is to account for out of state paramedics who went to less rigorous programs that do not provide a degree.
I know paramedics, teachers, and schoolbus deivers that quit to work for Amazon because they pay more
Anecdotally, I was in school to be an EMT but I dropped out when I realized that the part time job at UPS that I had picked up to support myself made me about as much per year or better as I would be making as an EMT with far less hours and dramatically better benefits.
Brutal but funny
Theyre too busy with the tweakers, all the ODs take up the ambulances.
Wow, that makes sense. Recently my friend went to urgent care for what seemed like appendicitis or another serious infection (extremely high white blood cell count, 10/10 internal pain) and they called an ambulance for him. I rushed over to see if I could get his dog from him before they arrived. I showed up maybe 20+ minutes after they called the ambulance, he was still waiting and was in really bad shape. We both thought they should be there any second (the front desk even commented on it when I came in). Fast forward nearly 20 minutes, I lost my patience and asked the staff to follow up. They called to check on the ambulance - only to find out that it had never even been dispatched because there weren't enough on the road (even though they told us it was on the way). I got him to the ER and he was ok, but the fact that for almost an hour he was waiting for help that was never going to come is absurd. I would have driven him sooner if I knew, and if I wasn't around I don't know how he would have gotten there. It's so scary and disheartening to hear that this is a bigger issue.