Need for more EMS workers in Collier County

12 additional positions will be added to Collier County’s emergency medical services division to keep up with the pace of the county’s growth and reduce workers’ exhausting amounts of overtime.

Within the past year and a half, Collier EMS has seen more than an 11% increase in call volume. Due to that increase, existing EMS employees in Collier County worked nearly 80,000 hours of overtime within the past year, amounting to more than 2.6 million.

These additional 12 positions in the division will cost a little over 1.1 million annually. Collier County Commissioner Rick LoCastro says it’s not only a cheaper option but also a safer one.

“It’s actually a cost saving to not pay overtime,” LoCastro said. “But, more importantly, to have a bigger staff to choose from, because one of the things that [Collier County EMS Chief Tabatha Butcher] had mentioned in her presentation to us, and it was also in her executive summary, is that her staffs are fatigued. And a year ago, then people were raising their hands for overtime. Now, it’s not so much, you know that they’re tired.”

LoCastro says these positions are not to beef up the EMS division or to go above and beyond; Butcher told commissioners she’s just trying to get the division to exactly where it needs to be with the increased call volume.

“It’s great when everybody volunteers to work longer hours, but you want everybody at their peak performance,” LoCastro said. “Having 100% staffing of ready-to-go teams is how you are able to reduce call times and make sure you’re more efficiently using your paramedic teams.”