What our Collective says about Rest Periods for EMS:
10.05: Employees working on an emergency response/patient transport vehicle/aircraft or standby assignments are expected to take rest periods during their shift, as time permits, in accordance with Employer guidelines. The Employer guidelines shall not conflict with Employment Standards.
Where such an Employee has not received a rest period following five (5) continuous hours of work they may contact their responsible on duty supervisor to make arrangements for a rest period. Requests will not be unreasonably denied except where an accident occurs, urgent work is necessary, or other unforeseeable or unpreventable circumstances occur, or it is not reasonable for the Employee to take a rest period. Rest periods taken in accordance with this clause are paid at the Basic Rate of Pay.
What does this actually mean for me? How Do I take a break?
From Alberta’s Employment Standard (https://www.alberta.ca/hours-work-rest)
An employee is entitled to one 30-minute paid or unpaid break after the first 5 hours of work for shifts that are between 5 and 10 hours long.
For shifts 10 hours or longer, an employee is entitled to two 30-minute breaks.
This is where you have do a bit of self advocacy. Each District Supervisor is responsible for ~20 units as well as trying to maintain through-put at 1-2 hospitals. Unfortunately, this means a supervisor will not be able to check in on you if you are running call to call to call.
Emergent Off-Load Process Update - New September 2024
What is the emergent offload process?
The emergent offload process is initiated when the EMS system is at critical capacity, and there are limited or no ambulances available to respond to events, posing a risk to patients in the community. In this process, EMS will offload appropriate patients at triage with the care being immediately assumed by ED nursing, allowing EMS crews to return to service in the community.
When is the emergent offload process triggered?
The process is triggered at Level 3 Critical alert and there is risk to patients in the community. It may also be triggered for a code orange or for a major incident where there is an anticipated significant strain on EMS resources.
What does this mean for staff who would like to eat/drink/recover/decompress/ perform other necessary basic human functions?
During the first 60 min of a newly declared Emergent Offload, all rest period requests will be deferred
If you are already on a Rest Period, it will not be terminated early.
Once an Emergent Offload period has last longer than 60 min, Rest Period requests will be honored, and those that were deferred will be offered in the order that they were requested,.
Time need for Critical Incident Stress Management (Article 49) is not effected by the Emergent Off-load restrictions
Please call your district supervisor, explain what you need, and make the most of your 30 minute rest periods.
Further clarification can be found at
(Please note that this document was published in Winter 2021 - Some of the At Hospital Rest direction may no longer apply due to the 45 min/ EMS Returned to Community Initiative / Emergent Offload Process)
If you experience any adverse affects to your psychological health and wellness due to not being allowed to rest/eat/drink/recovery/perform other basic human functions do to overwhelming system pressure please consider filling out and submitting a MySafetyNet report of psychological Injury/Near Miss
Other benefits of opening a dialog with your Supervisor
If you are getting caught-out moving, and it has resulted in multiple back to back calls, Contact your district Supervisor. There is protentional for you to get a brief OOS to your closest station so that you can attain the At Station status which adds 2 min to your response time in Dispatch’s Select and Recommend monitor and can break you out of the geological phenomenon of being the closest unit to every call.
If you are nearing both the end of your shift and are about to clear the hospital, Contact your district Supervisor. They have been given direction to try to reduce overtime and if need be, get you a transport truck if resources allow.
If, despite all your best attempts to communicate and self advocate, you are still feeling unsupported, please navigate to the EMAC page and submit a concern so that you LUE can escalate and advocate for you (As always, the more detail you provide, the more your LUE can do for you.)