11 counties Polk Pasco Pinellas Hillsborough.
We asked them all for their data
on EMS shortages and emergency
worker numbers are down right
now and people are struggling.
They get a call when things
are at their worst,
but can we do something to help them?
10 Tampa Bay's Miranda Parnell
takes us on the road with EMS
from the Bay Area to find out why
our lifesavers need a lifeline.
What happens when the minutes when the
SEC that decide between a funeral?
And recovery are put at risk
because our emergency responders
are being stretched too thin.
Staffing has been tough for years,
but with the added stress of the pandemic,
there are now hundreds of EMS vacancies
in counties all around the Bay Area.
And this is 1 worker shortage,
impacting the entire country.
That's a matter of life and death.
EMS is a
calling you genuinely want to do
this, but the burnout is there
day after day
they're getting 2 steps with
alerts at the same time
call after call.
Our emergency medical team
step up to save lives.
But an industrywide worker,
shortages, wearing down
crews across the country.
And now they need help
the workforce is tired.
They're they're working overtime to
cover those slots that can't be filled,
so we're seeing this exhaustion.
We're seeing this fatigue in the workforce.
Terrance ramotar.
The President of the Florida
Ambulance Association,
and he's been in the industry
for almost 25 years.
He says the shortage of EMTs
and paramedics is worse now than
it has ever been in his career.
Not many people walk around
today planning that they're going
to have an emergency that day,
but when it is, their expectation
is that someone is there to help,
and so not always during these times
and not everywhere in the state
of Florida are we gonna be ready
to have an ambulance around the
corner waiting for your emergency
team. Operation Supervisor
with American Medical response.
Valentin Delorbe has been in the
industry for more than 20 years,
he says, while emergency crews across
the country are dealing with shortages,
their jobs are also impacted by
worker shortages at the hospitals
so that domino effect from the
nursing shortage is from the
staffing shortages in the hospital
to us having staffing shortages.
It just continues to trickle down
and trickle down and trickle on.
Depending on your issue.
If you call for an ambulance,
but there are no more beds available
at the hospital because of staffing,
you just have to wait in the
ambulance until a bed opens up.
It's called wall time and it can take hours
that wait can be extraordinary.
Sometimes we're waiting
1234 upwards of six hours,
and that's an ambulance that's
tide up that can't respond
to someone elses emergency.
So what's causing the shortage
for emergency medical responders?
EMS crews tell us it's.
Not just one thing,
some left because they didn't want the
potentially high exposure to COVID.
Some retired early when the
pandemic hit others left for
other medical fields with higher
pay and some left the industry
altogether after getting burnt out
from covering the extra shifts
they've been working under conditions
they never imagined they'd work in
and the Lord says not only are
people leaving the industry,
but they aren't getting the
typical influx of new EMTs.
Schools themselves have been
shut down or delayed so their
programs have been delayed.
And what you get paid in the industry.
That doesn't help. We looked at
the average salaries for EMT
starting out in the Bay Area.
They range from the highest with Highlands
County at about $44,000 a year to
Hardee County at about $26,000 a year.
We need funding. We need assistance.
Most of how we get reimbursed
is through Medicare or Medicaid.
Those are on fixed fee schedules.
When we now have a minimum wage mandate
that was voted in a few years ago.
So now we're we're looking
at moving this workforce to a
minimum wage of $15.00 an hour.
We don't have a means.
To secure more funding to do so
in October, leaders from national groups
representing these emergency workers,
wrote a letter to Congress asking
for help combating the shortage and
the problems that came with it,
the letter said overall turnover
among paramedics and EMTs
ranges from 20 to 30% annually,
going on to say staffing
shortages compromised.
Our ability to respond to health
care emergencies,
especially in rural and
underserved parts of the country.
And there's only so much overtime you
can do before you're just going to
be physically and mentally exhausted.
Bruce Evans, the president of
the National Association of
Emergency Medical Technician,
says they need Congress to step in
and help with funding and benefits
to help bring in more workers
something very similar to the GI Bill.
So we would be proposing that
potentially somebody that works
in an ambulance in any fashion,
and they're there for three or four years,
much like military service that the
Department of Labor would fund your
paramedic training in its entirety.
But even with the threat of COVID exposure,
the days spent working overtime,
the pay, and the stress. But
you still love what you do every day,
each and every day.
That's why this is what we wake up to do.
This is probably the most rewarding
career you can ever have,
but it's a starting point into healthcare.
It's a starting point into
making a difference in patients
lives each and every day.
And now these crews are asking
for people to get in contact with
state lawmakers and representatives
from their area to help push for
more state and federal assistance
before things get even worse.