A spokesperson for a union with a membership of nearly 6,000 ambulance paramedics and dispatchers in British Columbia is calling on BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) to schedule overtime in advance.
Ian Tait from the Ambulance Paramedics of BC said many vacancies used to be assigned well ahead of time. For example, a paramedic may pick up an overtime shift a month in advance when they submit their availability. Now, a policy change means that predictable vacancies in the shift rotation cannot be filled until the morning of a shift, Tait said.
He said cold calls in the morning are far less reliable for getting staffing levels up to acceptable levels.
He also said the BCEHS needs to “get serious” about increasing the staffing capacity of paramedic services in our communities, noting that recruiting, training and orienting new professionals is a multi-year process.
“There’s been a big push on recruitment and retention and we’re barely keeping up with the amount of people who are retiring,” he said, adding how, to BCEHS’s credit, the service has made great efforts to hire more people. It just is not enough to meet the demand for paramedic services.
Tait suggested he’s never seen a paramedic service that is fully staffed, so the lived reality for the union’s members is working understaffed every day—ranging from working with roughly 80 per cent staffing levels to as low as 50 or 40 per cent on-shift.
“If people stopped working overtime in the ambulance service, it would completely collapse in about 90 minutes,” he said.
Tait was on CFAX 1070 with Al Ferraby today.The minister responsible for health in B.C., Josie Osborne, addressed this issue while speaking with Al Ferraby this morning shortly after Tait’s interview.
She suggested BCEHS is closely monitoring staffing levels, and are taking actions to fill shifts as quick as they can while making day-to-day decisions on staffing.
“I want to be very clear with people, that we have seen no increase in the number of ambulances that are out of service since they undertook their overtime policy review, and there is no ban on overtime,” Osborne said, adding that she’ll continue working with workers in the paramedic service to improve things.
Listen to the full conversation with the province's health minister: