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Potential changes to NYC's pre-hospital care system
1:37:06
ยท
4 min
Commissioner Tucker discusses the need for changes in New York City's pre-hospital care system. He emphasizes the importance of addressing challenges in EMS operations and improving working conditions for EMTs and paramedics.
- Tucker mentions ongoing negotiations for EMTs and support from the mayor for improvements
- He acknowledges the need for a 'moment of reckoning' regarding pre-hospital care in NYC
- Planned improvements include rebuilding the EMS Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) system
- Tucker expresses commitment to being 'thoughtful and even reinventive' with regard to EMS
- The commissioner emphasizes a unified approach, stating that all FDNY personnel 'wear the same patch'
Robert Tucker
1:37:06
Many many of whom, you know, we we rely on and the city relies on heavily.
1:37:13
The EMTs at they're at the bargaining table now and are negotiating with the city.
1:37:21
The mayor and city hall have supported something along similar to what you're saying.
1:37:29
There's no doubt with 1,600,000 calls for service a year, that's an astronomical amount of work.
1:37:39
And EMTs and paramedics are doing an unbelievably heroic job.
1:37:48
There's going to have to be a moment of reckoning that in this review that I spoke about earlier that we're gonna need to do things differently regarding pre hospital care in New York City.
1:38:05
And when I say that, I want to be really clear that I'm not in any way criticizing how it's been done.
1:38:14
I'm just saying that on a go forward basis we're going to have to do it differently.
1:38:19
I don't think there's one fix, chair.
1:38:23
I think that rebuilding the EMS CAD will help response times.
1:38:30
It will even help the quality of life and morale of the EMTs and paramedics in the ambulance because I've been in an ambulance.
1:38:38
I'm not an EMT or a paramedic or a firefighter, but it's hard to even read the screen.
1:38:45
I mean I've got glasses hanging around my neck.
1:38:47
The font size is embarrassingly large on the things that I've printed and I'm still wearing my glasses.
1:38:53
We've got a lot of work to do with EMS and I have a commitment from the mayor to be thoughtful and even reinventive if I have to be with regard to EMS.
1:39:11
I would say that nothing is off the table.
Joann Ariola
1:39:18
Yeah.
1:39:18
I'm happy to hear that because, you know, the the the vast disparity in wages for them has caused morale to lessen and caused a lack of retention and caused, you know, larger gaps.
1:39:37
Honestly, they are going out on more calls, and that's why I say that FDNY has to embrace them and funds have to be allocated so that their wages can be increased.
1:39:49
And I know you believe that and I believe that and we can work together towards that.
1:39:53
Yeah.
1:39:53
Looking forward
Robert Tucker
1:39:54
to working with you and the administration on this.
1:39:56
As I said, I have a lot of support from the administration on the way I'm approaching it.
1:40:03
Again, it goes back to that CEO approach.
1:40:06
I think that we're all wearing the same patch here.
1:40:10
Chief Fields and many of the EMS chiefs over here, we're all wearing the same patch with one agency and we're going to operate like that on a going forward basis.
1:40:21
There are things we can do in addition to reviewing the pay that I think would take Because look, so many people in FDNY work at FDNY because of the mission.
1:40:36
It's not just about the pay.
1:40:39
And so pay is a factor.
1:40:44
But we've seen where a pay increase doesn't change necessarily enough of the things to make people want to come to work and do their job productively.
1:40:58
And I'm really focused on it.
1:41:02
I believe that it's one of the reasons I'm sitting here.
1:41:05
I think that the mayor saw in some of ideas that I put forward to him during the process that we went through to improve EMS from where it is and build a pre hospital care system that will work well into 02/1950 and beyond.