Mass. EMTs better trained, difficult to keep

By Ellen G. Lahr
The Berkshire Eagle

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The days of the part-time EMT who runs ambulance calls to earn extra money on nights and weekends are waning fast in paid ambulance companies.

EMTs are now advancing to become paramedics, making careers of their emergency medical service work and earning wages of about $50,000 per year, with retirement benefits and paid vacation time, said County Ambulance President Brian Andrews.

The pay and benefits, however, are not always enough to hold employees in place; other jobs in the health care industry, for which EMT service is an entree, often beckon.

"Our biggest competition is health care," said Andrews, whose company will absorb 18 employees of the American Medical Response ambulance company across town, where 35 jobs will vanish when the company closes its Pittsfield operation Dec. 31.

Andrews said County has lost employees to careers in nursing, and one went on to become an emergency medical doctor who now works at Berkshire Medical Center.

Staffing is a constant challenge, in part because of the time demands of the emergency responder training programs. If not for the experienced employees being laid off by AMR, he said, County would be hard-pressed to absorb another 2,500 to 3,000 calls per year.

County paramedic Robert Van Bramer is one who stayed. At 19, in 1988, he was working for a cleaning company and left to join County Ambulance. He started out driving a wheelchair van, one in the fleet operated through County's contract with the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority.

Soon, he signed up for the 114-hour EMT training program and continued up through paramedic education. At 39, he's now a senior employee and is in charge of dispatch operations. He said he works 48 to 56 hours weekly.

He loves his job.

"Because of the people, mostly," he said. "It's a job where your office is outside, and for the most part, it's never boring. I still come across new stuff, and I'm still learning."

And because many calls involve people who are injured, sick or fearful — as well as their friends and family members — an emotional boundary is crucial, he said.

"You can't take it personally," he said. "People who do, they usually don't last on the job. You sometimes get sworn at, or swung at, by people who don't realize what you're doing."

County Ambulance, which also provides nonemergency transports for nursing homes, doctors' offices and hospitals, has grown from just two ambulance vehicles in 1982 to become the county's key full-time, full-service emergency medical response business. As of Jan. 1, it will employ 90 people.