24 Hour shifts

[David Martin]

The current thread about Atlanta's ambulance system reminded me about a story on KPHO tv that ran earlier this week.

The Valley is serviced by two private firms and the City of Phoenix has their own. Paramedics at one of the privates are shown as they are up the entire 24 hour shift routinely... When not at their own assignment they're covering other stations.

One crew was followed by the Tv Crew as they drove back and forth from one end of the valley to another three times handling calls and covering for other crews.

The video is available at KPHO click on videos and then type in ambulance.

Certainly glad I'm 2 blocks from the closest station and two miles from the next.

 

[Robert Davidson]

24 hours shifts

Don't know how they can justify 24 hour shifts in a busy service where there is no downtime. Too much risk of vehicle collisions, medical errors, and plain old burnout. Regular shift hours max out at 12 for us and for shift overrun, overtime, major events, etc,,, you time out at 16 hours max and no more....

 

[John ED Renstrom]

I would hate to be the pt during hr 23. 12 hr is bad enough you ability to think straight is way down the tube. the fact that people are not leaving the service in droves says something for there dedication to the job.
I my self have never been a fan of the diesel engines. the one thing they do well is idle on standby with the ac on. mileage was not all that much different and if you take care of a gas engine getting the life out of them is just as easy. that and the engine is a lot more forgiving. plus they are cheaper all round. ford had that little problem with there filler and kept burning the ambulances up at the gas pump. that was why they went to the only diesels.
but if you ever had the fuel jell at -20 in the middle of no were you not vary impressed with them.

 

[Bill Leverett]

We don't do 24 hour shifts

We don't run 24 hours shifts in BC either for our full-time crews. We typically run 12 hour night shifts (18:30 - 06:30). Just like the service Bob works for our maximum duty period is 16 hours, however if at any time a paramedic feels they are unable to continue safely they are taken out of service. We used to run 10 hour days and 14 hours nights but found that as call volumes increased and the crews ran back to back calls, 14 hours was just too long.

All of stations that are crewed 24 hrs a day have sleeping facilities and we are permitted to rest between calls. We are required to be on the air and responding to the call in under 90 seconds.

A 24 hour shift is Ok if your unit call volume is low...but that usually does not occur with non-fire based EMS services (not to offend the fire-based services).

Bill