By EMS1 Staff
BOSTON — In an effort to hire more EMS providers, Boston officials will begin paying recruits while they take part in a training program.
Boston Herald reported that the EMS Recruit Academy is a six-month program that pays participants 80 percent of a full salary while they complete three months of classroom training and three months of on-the-job experience.
Tuition costs are also covered for CPR classes, which is required to be completed before the Academy, but may not be something applicants can afford, according to EMS Chief Jim Hooley.
Academy graduates will also be paid $57,000 for their first year on the job.
Hooley said EMS recruit numbers have diminished over the years, and he hopes the apprenticeship program will increase the hiring pool.
“One of the things we hope to get out of this is to sustain a good pool of applicants coming to us,” Hooley said. “Our job is to hopefully pull them into a career as an EMT.”
Hooley added that the program also aims to diversify the EMS department.
“We’ve always had a desire to make sure the recruitment classes reflect what Boston looks like in race, ethnicity and gender. Some years we did pretty well, other years really not as much of a mix, and that was really based on the applicant pool we were getting,” he said. “Sometimes you can be at a large scene, like an elderly building with mixed populations and multiple languages — you may be able to find a child or neighbor who speaks the language but you don’t want to go over a person’s medical situation through a neighbor.”
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