Paramedics not happy
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Updated: November 19, 2009 5:03 PM
Jessica Murdy
The Observer
Paramedics aren't pleased about the recent legislation that's ended their "working strike," says Agassiz's Paramedic Chief Larry Kennedy.
"The general mood is that people aren't happy," he says. "Nobody's happy about getting legislated back to work."
Although to those needed services, the paramedics never really left, he adds. The strike affected how paramedics conducted the administrative portions of their jobs, such as handling paperwork and training.
The original issues that sent the paramedics on strike seven months ago have not been resolved he says.
And it was probably the stress of being in an unstable working condition that led to the recent spike in sick days.
Kennedy says they've been running understaffed for years, and paramedics often end up working overtime in other cities to cover short-staffed cities and to make a fair wage.
"But we're still making 30 per cent less than our counterparts in (other emergency service departments)," he says.
Last Friday, an unusually high number of paramedics called in sick with little notice, leaving areas throughout the province short-staffed, either by the sick employees themselves, or by sending cars and paramedics out to short-staffed areas.
There were cars from as far away as Keremeos covering this area, Kennedy says.
"Fortunately it was quiet," he says.
He is among other paramedics who say that the mass call in was not planned.
"There's no link, not as far as I know," he says. "There's just a lot of people tired, a lot of people overworked. That was seven months with a lot of frustration."
Ambulance staffing began returning to normal Monday, after what Health Minister Kevin Falcon says was an obviously orchestrated strike action by the paramedics' union over the weekend.
About 50 paramedics in the Lower Mainland called in with little notice to say they weren't coming to work on Friday night, prompting the service to move ambulances from Vancouver Island and the Interior to provide coverage, and leaving several communities with little or no ambulance service on the weekend.
CUPE-B.C. president Barry O'Neill told CKNW radio Monday that there was no organized job action, although the paramedics were legislated back to work a week ago. O'Neill professed that he was unfamiliar with the term "sick-out," an orchestrated campaign of calling in sick.
The B.C. Ambulance Service has offered the union an additional wage increase of 1.2 per cent, if they can change the call-in system to allow part-time paramedics to work extra shifts instead of paying overtime to full-timers.
Falcon said the union has refused.
-with Black Press files
