Supervising paramedic Norman Hahn said that in the last three years, he has worked a double shift of 16 hours at least once per week. The city has not been able to keep up with the turnover, Hahn said. Robin McCulloch, the city's Emergency Medical Services chief, said the Navy and other agencies including Hawaii County, which has its own ambulance service, and private providers like American Medical Response are luring people away with higher pay, more time off between shifts and opportunities to work outside Oahu. Our attrition runs about 20 per year, which I don't think is excessive. We had a spike this year because the Navy started up a paramedic ambulance service at Pearl Harbor, luring five or six people.
Some people depend on overtime.
Generally speaking, there's overtime around. It's kind of divided. The money is appreciated. Others would prefer to spend time doing other things. McCulloch said AMR is the city's principal competitor for emergency medical workers.