Listen: ‘Bonus’ Pay Scheme for FDNY EMS?/NY Maternity Ward Closure
By Bob Hennelly
On this episode of WBAI’s What’s Going On? we check in with our FDNY EMS unions about a new bill introduced by New York City Council Member Joann Ariola, who chairs the Council's Fire and Emergency Management Committee, to provide a $20,000 retention and recruitment bonus for FDNY EMTS and $25,000 payment to FDNY EMS paramedics.
This proposal comes as the city's EMS crisis continues with scores of ambulances sitting idle every day for the lack of a crew while response times for the most serious medical emergencies continues to deteriorate.
It follows on the heels of a similar one-time $10,000 bonus passed by the New York City Council last week for New York City's paraprofessional teachers who help New York City's special needs children get through their school day.
Currently that workforce, like so many members of FDNY EMS, are making poverty level wages.
Healthcare workers are fighting to save vital Clayton-Hepburn & Carthage Area Hospital services.
We also get an update on some troubling reports about a New York State North Country hospital closing its maternity practice, a growing trend in much of America where over a third of counties, that's over 1,000 counties, don't have a single birthing facility or obstetric clinician.
Labor historian Dr. Joe Wilson also rounds out the show with Jenna Flanagan, host of We Decide: America at the Crossroads, heard on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., for more current events talk.
Listen to the entire show below: