Give these brave people their pay rise

Monday 26th January 2009, 3:00PM GMT.

From Gina Bouguard.
I WISH to express my feelings about the ambulance staff and urge the States to give these dedicated men and women, who respond to 999 calls without any thought of themselves, the pay rise they deserve.

They are out in all weather, can suffer abuse and assault from drunks, will think nothing of abseiling down a cliff to pick up the injured, collect dead bodies, save lives and yet are courteous and helpful at all times.

Do the people in charge not realise that this is a somewhat thankless task that these brave people perform?
I wonder how many of the public would care to do this, sometimes dangerous, job?

A telephone operator needs little training, whereas our paramedics undertake years of training, study, driving lessons and exams, for the privilege of helping the community.

There are those who may say, ‘If they don’t like the job, why do it?’ I say, they love the job, but are also entitled to get the remuneration deserved for the kind of work involved.

Come on States, open your eyes – would you undertake their job knowing that the person answering a telephone call is paid more than you?
16 Longueville Road,
St Saviour.

1
Mike

January 27, 2009 at 10:32 am

‘A telephone operator needs little training,’

Do we know that as fact?

Paramedic ambulance staff do deserve a pay rise but comparing their pay scale to others working in the same building isn’t going to make their case.

Am I not right in thinking that these ‘telephone operators’ also deal with Fire calls? I believe that UK Fire telephone operators earn the same and sometimes more than their Jersey counterparts as do our Jersey Police ‘telephone operators’. Personally I don’t think I could cope with the stress of either job and I think they deserve every penny.

I also believe that ambulance paramedics deserve a fair wage for the job they do too but as I have a family member working in the uk as a fire control officer I am aware of the level of training and commitment required by the control staff and so I feel that Gina Bouguard’s comments were unfair.

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2
L

January 27, 2009 at 9:48 pm

The controllers at the Ambulance Service, i believe, receive in house training where as the Ambulance Technicians and Paramedics need to travel to the UK for their training courses. They are not able to qualify through any local training.
I am sure it is stressful answering the telephones to emergencies but imagine actually having to respond to these incidents!
Surely it is about time they are listened to and given a fair wage for a very difficult and sometimes dangerous job.

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3
Mike

January 28, 2009 at 10:39 am

Again you are comparing the job of a controller to that of a technician or paramedic. What a controller earns does not have any bearing on what a technician or a paramedic should earn. You shouldn’t put less value on these people’s jobs to make a case for technicians and paramedics to earn more. The very nature of what they do should be enough for them to merit more money.

If no one wanted to be a controller because the wages were so low who would take the calls that the ambulance crews respond to? We would have the situation they have in the UK where the majority of control staff are very young and only stay in the job for 1-2 years with a minority staying longer. Surely we don’t want this to happen here in Jersey. There are more people interested in becoming paramedics than people wanting to make a career as control officers.

I hope the ambulance staff get the pay rise they deserve and I hope this is done without further undermining the role which the control staff play.

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4
Leah Holmes

January 30, 2009 at 2:42 pm

I love how people assume telephone operators need ‘little training’ as if that is the decider for pay scales.

It is a job where training is not very extensive because it requires natural ability and skill, and it is a natural ability that most people simply do not have!

The amount of information switchboard and telephone operators hold in the ‘immediate memory’ part of their brains at any one time (information that is constantly coming and going) absolutely astounds me. I have many academic qualifications but I will not kid myself that I could do their job because I’ve seen them in action and I couldn’t.

Thankfully we live in a world where academic ability is not the only way we decide someone’s pay, we also rightly reward creativity, sporting and artistic ability… but somehow we just haven’t got around to rewarding administrators, receptionists and switchboard operators fairly yet. Role on the revolution of society recognising the natural skills required to do these jobs well.

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5
Tony

February 8, 2009 at 11:49 am

Why all this talk about controllers? Controllers in the UK get full training up to the standard of Ambulance Technicians thus helping them to decide which care pathway is the most appropriate.
And to comment on the career of controllers, well why do these calls need to be taken in Jersey?They could be taken anywhere else in the world, rightly or wrongly this is not about control staff. Pay the people who deal with the vomit, blood, drug overdoses , death’s and other scenes i cannot imagine.

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