Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Monday, August 14, 2006

NOLA EMS or Homeland Security EMS?

According to the Gambit Weekly, our illustrious mayor Uncle Ray has proposed a brilliant plan to increase the pay of NOPD and new fire department recruits. Yes, that's it. Left out of the plan are countless other "essential workers," the type of city workers that stayed in New Orleans during the hurricane. No explanation of why dispatchers, civilian NOPD workers, veteran firemen and, oh yes, EMS workers were left out of this plan. Juliette was just as much in the dark about such a plan as anyone else was, as it seems the mayor announced this pay plan out of the blue, without consulting anyone about it - in particular those who would be affected by it!
Here's a snippet of the article:
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Also left out of the loop was Dr. Juliette Saussy, the city's director of Emergency Medical Services. She testified this spring before the Federal Communications Commission on the travails of city ambulance workers during Katrina. Dr. Saussy admits she was caught unaware when her boss announced raises that did not include her and her 90 employees. "I think any time you start talking about the three public agencies -- police, fire and EMS -- you need to talk to them together," she stated in published reports.

We agree. In fact, city Homeland Security chief Terry Ebbert should take those words to heart since he has asked the Civil Service Commission to transfer EMS from the city Health Department to his own command. Regarding the pay plan, it's not too late for the mayor to consider the importance of consensus building. History holds enough lessons for him on that count.
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In regards to the command overseeing EMS, it seems that Homeland Security would have oversight on the running of EMS, rather than the Health Department. I would imagine that EMS workers would remain city employees and civil service workers, only the command structure would change. Instead of answering to Dr. Stevens, we'd answer to Homeland Security.

Here's a link to the full Gambit article.

What are y'all's feelings on this?

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Administration Idiots (from Lexie)

I found out that administration has been checking up on the mypsace pages. I know that Barbara Ireland has a fake page to check up on people too, I haven't found out what her name is yet, im still looking . I just wanted to let everyone know because I think its shitty and totally not professional. Spanks, you're the bomb and we miss you here in this pit of ems hell!!!!!