B.C. paramedics reach temporary deal with province, immediate pay increase
Interim measures to address paramedic shortages in British Columbia are being announced, as the BC Emergency Health Services and its union, Ambulance Paramedics of British Columbia, have come to a temporary agreement with the province.
In a release Monday afternoon, BCEHS and its union say to address the shortages, the on-call rate for paramedics in B.C. will immediately rise from $2 an hour to $12 an hour.
They say that as staffing evening and weekend shifts are challenging, any overtime or recall shifts worked on evenings and weekends will now be paid at a double overtime rate, effective Saturday, Oct. 23.
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B.C. minister of health Adrian Dix in a statement said he is “pleased that BCEHS and APBC have worked to develop interim staffing measures intended to strengthen rural and remote B.C. ambulance staffing.”
BCEHS and APBC say they hope the new measures will stabilize staffing as paramedic representatives work on a longer-term staffing agreement.
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The interim changes come as the APBC sounded the alarm during the summer over the “deplorable” staffing issues the organization was facing.
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In August, APBC President Troy Clifford said the ongoing staffing shortage on the frontline had hit a crisis point. He said there are not enough paramedics or ambulances on the road to get to every call in a timely manner.
“We’re about 50 per cent full-time and part-time in this province right now. We have almost 1,000 vacancies across the province in rural, remote, metro, and urban centres and that’s actual positions — we need to hire that many paramedics,” he told CityNews earlier in the year.
In the same month, a baby in Barriere, a small community near Kamloops, died while waiting for an ambulance.
