A school nurse called 911 three times for a 14-year-old boy who was suffering a stroke, his mother told the City Council on Oct. 20.<\/p>\n
By the time an ambulance reached St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows on Sept. 28, she had already driven him to the hospital herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was slurring his words. His speech wasn\u2019t clear,\u201d Jennifer Daly of Howard Beach testified via Zoom. \u201cI called his cardiologist and I said, \u2018We have to get him over to the hospital. What do I do?\u2019 She said, \u2018Wait for the ambulance.\u2019 I said, \u2018I cannot wait for the ambulance.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Daly reached NewYork-Presbyterian\/Queens hospital at 9:52 a.m., she said. Her son, Kevin, was later transferred to Morgan Stanley Children\u2019s Hospital in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
FDNY EMS Chief Paul Miano, during the City Council\u2019s hearing on response times hosted jointly by the Committees on Fire and Emergency Management and Hospitals, called it \u201ca tragic incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
The call was passed from NYPD dispatch to EMS dispatch, Miano explained, and was entered in the system to say Kevin had an \u201cunknown condition\u201d because EMS never spoke with the caller to triage it, so it was not made a priority.<\/p>\n
Miano said 911 was handling more than 100 calls above normal that morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur life-threatening, our most serious calls … do not hold,\u201d Miano said. \u201cThose calls are immediately dispatched out as soon as an ambulance is available.<\/p>\n
A report by City Comptroller Mark Levine released Oct. 16 found that the average response time to life-threatening emergencies rose 3 minutes, 50 seconds, or 41.2 percent, to 13 minutes, 9 seconds, from fiscal years 2015 to 2026, which City Council Speaker Julie Menin (D-Manhattan) at the hearing said \u201cis just wholly unconscionable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over that same period, life-threatening medical emergencies grew 22.9 percent, while the paramedic workforce stayed about the same size.<\/p>\n
Pay is part of it. An EMT\u2019s first-year salary is $43,932, compared with $54,122 for a firefighter, and is the lowest of any city first responder or uniformed title.<\/p>\n
EMT salaries also climb more slowly. From hiring date through year five, salaries rise 56 percent, compared with 94 percent for firefighters. After five and a half years, an EMT\u2019s base salary is $68,700, compared with $105,146 for a firefighter, a gap of more than $35,000.<\/p>\n
Local 2507, which represents EMTs and paramedics, has been without a contract since July 29, 2022. Current EMT and paramedic salaries do not reflect a new deal, which would bring retroactive raises, the report says.<\/p>\n
More than 500 EMTs left their jobs in fiscal year 2026, or 19.5 percent of average headcount.<\/p>\n
The comptroller\u2019s report did not specify the number of hires, but said there were 2,540 EMTs at the end of that year.<\/p>\n
Also in fiscal year 2026, 58 percent of EMT departures left to be firefighters. The median EMT has 3.8 years with the title, compared with 8.1 years for firefighters.<\/p>\n
FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito said at the Council hearing that 358 EMTs and 63 paramedics left to become firefighters in 2026, adding that the department is \u201cresponding to more calls with fewer ambulances.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a positive outcome for the city to have firefighters with EMS and paramedic level medical training, but it also has a severe impact on EMS staffing in the short term,\u201d Esposito said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot train your way out of a workforce crisis when you refuse to address why people are leaving,\u201d testified Michael Greco, president of Local 2507.<\/p>\n
Training costs for new EMTs rose 300 percent between fiscal 2015 and 2026, from $15 million to more than $62 million, the report found.<\/p>\n
Menin at the hearing said that low pay has driven \u201crising attrition and low recruitment, which of course perpetuates this understaffing issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know at the end of the day what we need first is more money for our EMTs,\u201d said Councilmember Joann Ariola (R-Howard Beach), who chairs the Fire and Emergency Management Committee.<\/p>\n
She called for giving EMTs uniformed first responder and civil service status so they can \u201crise up in the ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city classifies EMTs as civilian employees, the comptroller\u2019s report notes.<\/p>\n
Closing the gap would be costly. If EMS pay rose to firefighter levels, with the full pattern of raises uniformed workers received, the Comptroller\u2019s Office estimates the net cost at $1.23 billion across fiscal years 2023 through 2027, after accounting for $163 million already in the city\u2019s financial plan.<\/p>\n
The report cautions that pay parity \u201calone is unlikely to substantially lower emergency response times,\u201d though better pay and retention \u201ccould ease operational pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Esposito said the union is negotiating with the city\u2019s Office of Labor Relations and the department is \u201chopeful that a resolution to the next contract will provide a recruiting boost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ariola believes \u201cwe are at a precipice of change\u201d when it comes to EMS pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s ever been a time when more people were looking at the pay levels of our EMS personnel, and I think that this will spur the change we need,\u201d Ariola said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A school nurse called 911 three times for a 14-year-old boy who was suffering a stroke, his mother…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[9174,194,17685,140781,14496,75,84,83,9,24,1057,63,308],"class_list":["post-386726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-ems","tag-fdny","tag-first-responders","tag-governement","tag-joann-ariola","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-council","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}