2023-06-08 09:35:43
Ambulance drivers who push harder on the accelerator are said to be entitled to bonuses of 15-20%, an illegal practice that has prompted an investigation by authorities in France.
Some paramedics would even receive part of the daily turnover to drive faster in a kind of race against time without taking into account the health status of the patients transported.
Five ambulance companies denounced this practice of “premiums for fast drivers” and seized the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, which immediately opened an investigation.
“Today, performance takes precedence over quality. The faster we go, the better we are paid, ”said an ambulance driver with twenty years of experience, interviewed by France Info, deploring the fact that we care less about the health of patients.
“You can save work time on the road by going very, very fast, dropping patients off very quickly without worrying about their condition, picking up two patients in the same ambulance,” he confessed.
A delegate from the labor inspectorate, who speaks of increasingly “fierce” competition since the opening of the sector to the private sector, admits that it is difficult, even complicated, to prove the allegations of these illegal bonuses.
These are checks which are necessarily more difficult since it is necessary to go and check illegal work, or even try to establish by stopping the ambulance workers on the road, if by chance, there is this type of remuneration which is given to them by hand by hand,” she said.
1686248809
#France #bonuses #driving #faster #paramedics