Pulaski County EMS may allow non-certified staff to work on its ambulances. That’s one of a few ideas EMS Director Brandon DeLorenzo presented to the county commissioners Monday to address the department’s staffing shortages.
“So on an ALS truck, you have to have a paramedic and an EMT, but if we just have a basic truck, we can get by with just a driver with no cert,” DeLorenzo explained. “I think all they have to have is CPR.”
DeLorenzo suggested opening it up to local firefighters, who already know the equipment and the county, or students in the department’s EMT class.
Another option is to have employees work less overtime to fill open shifts but pay them two dollars an hour to be on-call. “I live like two blocks from the station,” DeLorenzo said. “I could be on-call and have the truck in Winamac staffed with one person and I could just have a pager. If we get a call, either the ambulance comes and gets me or I drive to the station. It would only be another two-minute delay, if that, and we could get that covered.”
But County Attorney Kevin Tankersley had some concerns about requiring staff to be ready to respond without paying them minimum wage.
The commissioners agreed to let DeLorenzo continue exploring both options and discuss them with the county council. He hoped they’d be a stopgap measure until the county could pay EMS staff more competitive wages.
DeLorenzo also discussed the possibility of reimbursing employees for the cost of paramedic training if they stay with the department for a certain period of time, as well as waiving ambulance fees for county employees and volunteer firefighters.
