The North Lyon County Fire Protection District Board of Directors has approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the firefighters’ union aimed at addressing the physical, mental and occupational health of the firefighters while ensuring there is always a paramedic on duty.
The agreement between the district and the North Lyon Firefighters Association Local 4547 modifies staffing requirements under Article 19 of the current collective bargaining agreement to allow for a fire captain to serve as the paramedic on duty in the event that no paramedic is available for a shift.
It also states that no firefighters shall be required or mandated to work more than 96 consecutive hours and mandatory callback or forced coverage of open shifts shall exceed the 96-hour threshold.
A member may voluntarily exceed the 96-hour limit.
The district only has three paramedics currently, and Battalion Chief and Local 4547 President Joe Mendoza said one of them has been out for 60 days with a medical issue that was directly related to workload and mental health.
“We’ve had multiple times where people have been held for eight to 10 days straight,” said. “Unsustainable, and it’s going to put another individual in a bad place mentally and physically, emotionally.”
Mendoza said fire captains are classified as paramedics, but they are not eligible to fill paramedic positions.
“With this MOU, it gives us a little bit more freedom to be creative with our staffing, to fill positions and meet those minimum qualifications outlined by the CBA,” Mendoza said.
A paramedic can administer a higher level of care than an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), including administering narcotics. Mendoza said that means without a paramedic, a critical patient might not be receiving care during transport that a paramedic could provide.
“There's things that could be done within 45 minutes for a cardiac patient that can't be done by somebody who can’t, so that's another 30 to 45 minutes, if we’re not in traffic, of no care given at that level,” he said.
The district has a battalion chief and four firefighters on duty per shift, with one captain, one paramedic, and two firefighters. Under the MOU, a captain who is also a paramedic can fill both roles, freeing up the district to draw from a larger pool of firefighters to cover the remaining seat.
“We have more of a pool of people that can voluntarily come in to fill that seat and go down to an (Intermediate Advanced EMT) car,” he said.
The MOU also states that if an open position cannot be filled due to the maximum hours limitation and no other member is available or eligible for voluntary coverage or mandatory callback, the affected unit, company or apparatus may be browned out for that staffing period.
The MOU will remain in effect until either the district or Local 4547 retracts it.
Bunn said the district is averaging 11.4 calls per day and 80 percent of those are for emergency medical services.
“If you average two hours a call to include boarding time and all those things, you're running out of hours in the day for four people, and then to have to do that consecutively for 96, 120 hours,” Mendoza said. “And it’s not just the workload.”
Mendoza talked about the strain of dealing emotionally with traumatic calls.
“And people process those things differently,” he said. “Some people need time away to process those things and we're not giving them that ability to process.”
Mendoza, Fire Chief Brian Bunn and the board members all acknowledged the arrangement is not ideal, but said it is necessary to protect firefighter safety while maintaining service levels.
“We absolutely don't want to see this,” Board Member Christine Sullivan said. “I wish there was more that we could do.”
Mendoza said the union didn’t want to reduce staffing levels but felt forced to act.
“Two MOUs ago, my guys didn’t want to drop staffing,” he said. “What we really want is more people. We don't want this. This is still unsafe for us.”
Board Chairman Paul Murphy called it the best solution for now, until the district can address its staffing issues.
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