July 15, 2024
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#1006 The Last Ambulance
“I can look up online and track snow plows in real time, but I don't know which ambulance is in service. I don't know what the paramedic staffing level for Montreal is, but I can tell you where the snow plows are. There is something seriously skewed.” - ex-paramedic Hal Newman
Karyn Pugliese
Editor-in-Chief
Bruce Thorson
Senior Producer
Tristan Capacchione
Audio Editor & Technical Producer
max collins
Director of Audio

For forty years, Hal Newman worked in Emergency Medical Services. After retiring, he decided to start an online platform, The Last Ambulance, where he investigates the problems he saw in the EMS system. 

Messages started pouring in from EMS workers from across the country. Now his platform has  become a voice for many health care and emergency service workers who are demoralized, exhausted, hanging on by a thread – and who are afraid to speak publicly about what is happening inside the system. 

Despite having worked in the system for so long, he didn’t realize just how broken it was until he started publishing The Last Ambulance.

 

Host: Karyn Pugliese

Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), max collins (Production Manager), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)

Additional music by Audio Network

 

Further reading:

 

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