Who's "on call?"

[Dixieladyff]

We work on call shifts at my EMS job. It works out pretty well for us. Here is how it works.

There are A, B, & C shifts, on call hours are from 0800-2000/2000-0800. Those on call can be anywhere in the county they want to be. (Our company covers the whole county for 911 + some of the county next to us.) We are paid 2.00 a hour to be on call, if they call us in we are paid whatever our hourly normal salary would be for at least 2 hours. (This is usually overtime for most of us who work full time) If you work longer than the 2 hours you get however many hours you worked, if it is under 2 hours you still get at least the 2 hours. This even goes for the times they call us in and we get canceled before making it to the station. We have a 1st on call crew and a 2nd on call crew. Usually they try to pair us up according to where we live in the county. That way we can take a spare ambulance home at night and not have to use our gas up. Usually the medic I work with on call, lives on my way to the main station, its just a matter of picking him up at the end of his driveway. For me I love it, I get to get extra hours but get to spend time with my family. Since my hubby and I work for the same company but not the same shift, I usually try to take on call on his shift. That way I can go hang out at his station until I am needed. So my thought is where else can someone pay me to hang out with my hubby. (LOL)

They supply us with a 800 radio that we have to listen to. These are ours to keep as long as we are employed with the company. That is how we know when we are called in. The last crew on the regular shift that goes out calls in the 1st on call crew as they are headed to post. If the 1st on call crew goes out then they call in the 2nd on call crew. They also make sure they have sleeping quarters for the on call crews for those times when we are to busy working and know there is no use in going home just yet. Or if your 24 hr shift was busy and you didn't get to sleep. Most of us like to work our on call shift following our 24hr shift. That way we have 36 straight hours off.

Like I said you can be anywhere in the county that you wish to be. So you are free to go pay the bills, grocery shop, etc.....

We are a small company and live in a small rural county. The company is very much family. We support each other, and know each others kids by name. Pitch in and help each other out when needed. Its a great place to work for, and I am happier there than anywhere else.

We do have the occasional times when the county decides to go crazy and we end up rolling up our sleeves and creating a 3rd out and sometimes a 4th out crew. That happens rarely, but most of the employees are there because they know the company is not like most companies, they actually care about their employees.

[medstudent30]

My first EMS job had an 'on call' system. You were scheduled your regular hours for the week, and then given a 24-hour on call day, which meant that you could be called in at any time during that 24 hour period. We got paid from the time we hit the garage till we left, and was not paid a stipend for being on call during that 24 hour period. Sometimes if we torked management off, they would schedule us two 24 hour on call days and they were usually back to back. Now I work for a company where there is no on call system, if they call ya its usually for OT. [/font:741db5d0c7]

[temsp40]

The main system I work for has a 12 hour (0600-1800) full time basic, a 16 hour medic (0600-2200) in station Monday - Thursday, Friday - Sunday Medic 24 hours. After 1800 all the BLS is on call, paid $2.00/hr + ??$15/call during call time. The ALS is on call 2200-0600 Monday - Thursday, (full time paid at 1 1/2 for 2 hour minimum per call on call). Daytime calls are paid @ $25.00/call for 2nd call for the on-call employees and OT if any of the full time employees respond. This system works very well at night when we usually have 2-3 BLS scheduled with the ALS, but we have a lack of personnel during the day making 2nd calls during the day hit or miss.

One of the other services I work for has a staffed intercept ALS truck 24/7 that will cover ambulance calls in town if there are no EMT's on call, M - F primary ambulance is covered with 1 BLS full time 8 hours and 1 on-call BLS 8 hrs, after that it is all on-call BLS/ALS -- system works ok, the ALS truck covers alot of the weekend calls, but not a problem, that's what we are there for.