PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Pittsburgh EMS workers say they are understaffed and overstretched, racing from one call to the next.
Like operations throughout the country, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Emergency Medical Services is contending with a shortage of paramedics and emergency medical technicians.
From traffic accidents to people experiencing chest pains to addicts overdosing on fentanyl, the calls for service are constant.
With less than 200 employees, Pittsburgh EMS responded to more than 65,000 calls last year. At the same time, it’s dealing with retirements, on-the-job injuries, and a severe shortage of recruits.
Bureau Chief Amera Gilchrist has stepped up recruiting efforts and employed better use of data, but has had to resort to taking medic units out of service on given days as she tries to provide life-saving services to city residents.
“Any time we have to take units out of service is challenging. I don’t think there has been one call when the public has requested our services when we have not been there,” Chief Gilchrist said.
The men and women of Pittsburgh EMS have been able to maintain that pace despite being severely understaffed. Nationwide, there’s a shortage of EMTs and paramedics recruits, while the city continues to lose them to retirement and injury.
Those on the front lines amassed $6 million in overtime just last year, with one paramedic alone making $327,000. Five others pulled in more than $200,000, while 69 others made more than $100,000 in mostly forced overtime.
“When you’re forced to do overtime and you have a family and you want free time, we don’t wish that on anyone,” says Pittsburgh councilman Anthony Coghill (D).
Managing the staffing shortage and keeping EMS afloat falls to its chief, Gilchrist, who has begun using data to better marshal EMTs to basic calls and the more highly-skilled paramedics to the more serious ones. She’s also taken the controversial step of taking some units out of service on a given day, sidelining one of the medic units in Homewood indefinitely.
At the same time, Gilchrist says she’s trying to address the strain on her employees.
“We care about the mental health of our employees. It has fallen by the wayside in recent years, but that is the reason why we have a hiring and recruitment initiative going on, and it’s going to take time,” Gilchrist added.
This year, Gilchrist has hired 30 additional employees. Some of them are from the Freedom House in the Hill District, named after the original African-American ambulance service which formed the nucleus of EMS Bureau in the early 1970s.
The paramedic union is currently in contract talks with the city, asking for higher base pay and a lifting of the city’s residency requirement, which no longer applies to city police and firefighters.
“Ideally, no, I would not like to see them lift the residency requirement, but if that’s what it takes to get our medic units up to full staff, I’ll let the collective bargaining hash that out,” Coghill said.
Gilchrist believes the EMS will be made whole in time.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint. It didn’t get this way overnight and it’s not going to be fixed overnight, but we are hitting the pavement to get this initiative pushed forward,” Gilchrist said.
Andy Sheehan
KDKA-TV Investigator Andy Sheehan began his broadcast journalism career in September 1992, when he joined KDKA after reporting for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for nine years. Andy’s forte is the in-depth investigative story, exposing corruption and government waste.
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