Ambulance drivers who step on the gas harder are said to be entitled to bonuses of 15-20%, an illegal practice that has led to an investigation by French authorities.
Some paramedics would even get a portion of the day’s revenue to go faster in a sort of race against time, regardless of the health of the patients being transported.
Five ambulance companies condemned this practice of “fast driver bonuses” and contacted the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional health authority (ARS), which immediately launched an investigation.
“Today, performance comes before quality. The faster we drive, the better we get paid,” an ambulance driver with 20 years’ experience told France Info, regretting that we care less about patients’ health.
“You can save time on the go by driving very, very fast, dropping patients off very quickly without worrying about their condition, and picking up two patients in the same ambulance,” he confessed.
A Labor Inspectorate delegate, speaking of increasingly “tougher” competition since the sector opened up to the private sector, conceded that proving claims of these illegal bonuses is difficult, even complicated.
These are controls that are bound to be more difficult as illegal work must be checked or even attempted to detect this by stopping rescuers on the street if there happens to be some sort of reward being handed to them by hand,” she said.