Burned again.

I should state up front about this that as a City of Hamilton Paramedic, this is a topic near and dear to my heart, and the views expressed here are solely my own, so don't go gettin' all legal-like on me.

The City of Hamilton has increased the budget for Hamilton Emergency Services (Fire AND Ambulance) by 4% next year to bring the total budget to around 81 million dollars (plus or minus a nickel here and there). This increase is to cover two main areas, wage increase and the building of a swanky new fire station in Ancaster. This grinds my gears and I am going to tell you gentle readers why.

First is the wage increase. Since the amalgamation of the City of Hamilton the Fire Dep't has sucessfully negotiated one and maybe two labour contracts between themselves and the City (they may have finished the second I'm not too sure). Good for them. Do you know how many contracts the City had negotiated with the Ambulance service? None, nil, zip, bupkus, zero, didly-squat and not at all. Wonder why? You aren't the only one.

Because of this, Hamilton Emergency Medical Service, or HEMS (the ambulance guys) have had one raise in pay. Just prior to the world bike racing championships, the medics were thrown a bone to keep us busy so we wouldn't be whining with global attention on the City. Since then, nothing.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my job but the fact remains that HEMS is the lowest paid service in the area and one of the lowest in the province (to the tune of about 5$ an hour difference). It is very true that a City of Hamilton Animal Control officer makes more money than a Paramedic. So that increase to cover the wages, doesn't affect HEMS one iota.

So to the new fire station; do we as Hamiltonians need it? Let me give you some facts and you can decide for yourself. The City of Hamilton covers a vast expanse of area (such as Ancasterm, Dundas, Flamborough, Waterdown, Stoney Creek, Hamilton etc). There are currently 25 Fire stations to cover this off. Most are staffed full time, some are mixed with full time and volunteer and some are strictly volunteer. There are also many stations that have multiple units within the one station, for example, Station 1 (John and King William) has a Supply Truck, a Ladder, a Pumper, and a Squad truck (baby pumper). Station one is also very busy. HES-Fire also staffs some 650 odd full time firefighters PLUS the volunteers (HEMS has about 160 full time medics).

So lets draw a picture. Say you live downtown. Downtown I'm going to define as the large block from Parkdale ave in the east to the Hwy 2 &8 junction (where Main becomes Osler) in the west. Very large right? With that area there are at least nine Fire trucks of varing types. Know how many ambulances cover the same area? Three. Assuming that all three are at base (which is rare) because if any are out then there are fewer trucks to cover more area.

So lets make this math simple. Station One (John St and King William) is one of the busier fire stations in the service. I have the 2005 statistics in black and white. In 2005 Station one responded on 3837 calls of all types. Know how many were ACTUAL fires? No? I do - 274. Remember that 3837 is combined from all three fire trucks at the station. I also know that I personally provided direct patient care on more than 1300 calls in one year. Which means that my partner had to have done "about" the same number. so 2600 calls for our little battle wagon in one year. Now you have to multiply THAT by four because there are four shifts of medics on my truck. So thinking conservitively, my ambulance was at more than ten thousand scenes. Doesn't seem to be much in the way of parity does there?

More math for you. In the HES budget for 2005, FIRE was almost 60 Million and Ambulance was less than 20 million (plus or minus some nickels). So in a nutshell, EMS does three times the call volume, takes one third of the budget, and we can't get the City to sit down and negotiate a contract that would allow us to have something simple as sick time (right now if we are off sick, we don't get paid).

So where am I going with all of this? Does Ancaster need a new Fire Station? That's not the right question. The question should be why is Ancaster not getting a Fire/EMS station? Because corporate bean counters determined long ago that property is far more valuable than life; and the greatest tragedy is that the citizenry allows it happen.

So when you wake up one morning and feel a crushing pain in your chest and call 911, and when the close by Fire Dep't shows up almost instantaneously to put oxygen on you and then stand around and look expensive, then you will wonder why it's taking the ambulance so long to get there. Then you will really care that there aren't that many of us and maybe, just maybe if you live through the night, you can pick up a telephone and discuss the matter with your elected city representative.

Here endeth the squawk. 'Nuff said.

Rich