By Lucas Daprile
cleveland.com
CLEVELAND — For the first time in decades, Cleveland EMS will soon have as many paramedics and EMTs as the division says it needs.
The staffing boon is aided by a new class of cadets at the Cleveland EMS academy, who began classes on Monday. The class of 27 is the city’s largest since 2013.
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“For the first time in decades, EMS will be fully staffed in the field with paramedics to administer life-saving interventions to the citizens and visitors here in the city of Cleveland,” Cleveland EMS Commissioner Orlando Wheeler said during a Tuesday press conference.
Having a full field staff means officials can put more ambulances on the street, spread the workload more evenly among employees and, in certain situations, reduce response times, said EMS Commander Ellen Kazimer, the agency’s spokesperson.
For EMS, full staffing means 204 paramedics and 55 emergency medical technicians, comprising the majority of the staffing for a department that’s budgeted for 315 employees, according to city records.
It’s unclear when Cleveland EMS was last fully staffed, but officials told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that it has been quite some time.
David Jockers, the first vice president of the union that represents Cleveland’s EMS workers, called the increase in workers “a great sign of growth and improvement in the division.”
The announcement that EMS officials will meet their staffing goals came during a press conference about the department adding automated ventilators to all of the city’s frontline ambulances, a move city officials say will help save lives. The addition of ventilators follows another improvement in the city’s EMS services: the ability to conduct whole-blood transfusions in the field.
“With all the technology and new innovations that we’ve been utilizing here in the division, this is more like a mobile intensive care unit than it is anything else,” Wheeler said.
During a staffing shortage in 2022, Cleveland EMS had 165 paramedics and 29 emergency medical technicians. Amid that shortage, only four people who participated in the academy at that time agreed to accept a job.
In 2023, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb cut unfilled police and EMS positions to balance the budget.
Last year, EMS officials told Cleveland City Council it was hoping to get funding approved for 11 positions that had been lost during budget cuts.
In March, the union that represents EMS workers, the Cleveland Association of Rescue Employees, successfully lobbied Bibb and city council to add back those positions.
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