A pressing issue: Finding a voice for the paramedic profession

Along with a majority of other paramedics working as part of one of the many UK ambulance trusts, this author spent a significant part of January feeling excessively grumpy and irate at the press—namely, certain pieces of unfair journalism that failed to account for both sides of an argument. But then, being a paramedic, the author is biased and it comes as no surprise that they would call it unfair.

Working in a fairly busy corner of England, the discomfort of having late or no meal breaks during a shift are commonplace, and they have been since the author of this piece graduated. Of course, in-service moaning about the meal break issue is quite understandable, and, as paramedics we all do it.

The author came into this job knowing this might be the case on certain occasions (it is not like it's a new phenomenon), but for our right for a meal break to be reported as an excuse for bad practice is unreasonable in its portrayal of the service and, the author feels, completely unsatisfactory. While this raises the issue of breaks for emergency staff, and the associated human rights and policies, the author thinks the underlying issue here is to do with the reporting media. Jim Morrison famously said, ‘whoever controls the media controls the mind’ and the author thinks this statement is perhaps more applicable in today's society than when it was in the 1960's when he said it. Though freedom of speech is important, in today's blame culture such freedom of speech can, on occasion, promote outrage and indignation at the drop of a hat—on this occasion, it was at the expense of our profession.