The National Ambulance Service Representative Association (NASRA) 2nd Annual Conference meeting in Athlone today (Friday) heard that demands on frontline paramedics are growing while the service is being starved of resources and pay and conditions are deteriorating. Mr. Tony Gregg, NASRA General Secretary described as “outrageous “ the situation where front line paramedics are now expected to deliver complex first responder and lifesaving interventions to substitute for reduced acute hospitals access and emergency services, while at the same time they are not even recognized as professionals by their employers, the National Ambulance Service (NAS) and HSE.
“While paramedics are being asked to deliver lifesaving interventions which would normally be delivered in a controlled environment of a local accident and emergency department and are being asked to compensate for hospital closures throughout the country, their employer refuses to even recognize them as a paramedic grade.”
“Although ambulance personnel as professionals must register with the statuary body PHECC as paramedics on completion of their training in order to deliver effective life saving clinical interventions and patient care, our employer class us as ‘Emergency Medical Technicians' and still refuses to recognize our grade as paramedics within the health care system.”
“As long as frontline ambulance personnel are not recognized as paramedics then we will continue to be denied fundamental rights in sick leave, appropriate retirement age and compensation that other frontline emergency service personnel qualify for.
Mr. Gregg said that while the National Framework Agreement currently under discussion by the NAS and Irish Ambulance Representative Council (IARC) addresses training, deployment, rosters, reconfiguration, flexibility, modernization, trauma by-pass, rapid response vehicles, solo responders etc. it fails to recognize the ‘human resource' that are frontline national ambulance service employees.
“All of the other elements that make up the ambulance service are laid out in this Framework but the one resource that is totally ignored by management, and the recognized unions, is the NAS employees who are the backbone of the service.”
NASRA Chairman, Mick Dixon said : “As NASRA marks the third year since its foundation we are committed to ensuring that NAS employees get the recognition as paramedics that they deserve and are long overdue. The union is also determined to secure negotiating rights to address the serious issues confronting the growing number of NASRA members around the country.”
Media Contacts : Tony Gregg 086-3344186 /Mick Dixon 086-2704736/Derek Cunningham 086-2430535
