HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. — Had the countywide 911 unification begun Saturday as tentatively scheduled, the emergency communication system would be short 26 employees.
Finding job applicants isn’t the problem, said John Stuermer, executive director of the Hamilton County 911 Emergency Communications District. The issue lies in getting those applicants through training in time to get them on the floor.
Usually the process to become a Telecommunicator I takes 11 months, including classroom time and on-the-floor training for call taking, emergency medical dispatch and law enforcement.
But to speed the process, the district now is teaching only call taking during a two-month period and eventually will offer emergency medical dispatch and law enforcement instruction. The employees will only take calls and will not dispatch or give law enforcement instruction, Mr. Stuermer said.
“The conundrum is that everybody’s ready to hire, but we have a limited number of people who can act as training officers on the floor,” Mr. Stuermer said.
The shortage stems from collective vacancies in each agency that will become unified — including Chattanooga, Hamilton County and East Ridge — that still will be present when the jurisdictions merge.
Eleven applicants are being trained and will be available to start work by mid-month, Mr. Stuermer said. Soon after, a new group will begin training.
The unified system has 137 telecommunicator positions written into its budget, Mr. Stuermer said.
Unification tentatively had been slated for Saturday, but officials decided in September to push back the date to January, citing personnel and training issues.
Shortages among agencies occur for a variety of reasons, including turnover rates and moving employees from the floor to positions as trainers.
“You have a constant turnover,” Mr. Stuermer said. “It’s a very stressful job, and it’s been especially stressful in the fact that these people have been working short-staffed for the level of calls they’ve been given.”
The dispatch profession previously was viewed as a stepping stone to getting a job in emergency response, such as firefighting, said Hamilton County EMS Chief Ken Wilkerson. Now people view the job as a career, which may reduce turnover in the future, he added.
“It’s a relatively new career field, and I think we’re just now starting to see people who will stay full term from entry level to retirement,” he said. “I think it’s been professionally steered into a career field of its own.”
The number of calls varies between each agency. For example, the county EMS alone receives about 25,000 calls for service each year.
Stress doesn’t factor into turnover rates for the Hamilton County Emergency Services call takers because they don’t receive the nonsense calls the police do and usually send out fire trucks or ambulances, said Capt. Dot Vick, a communications supervisor.
Those working only as call-takers will not be able immediately to dispense medical advice, which is what EMDs do, she said. But taking calls alone requires more than 200 hours of training, including learning how to speak to someone and enter information into a computer program.
“You can’t just come in off the street and do it,” she said.
Most of the people working under her now are EMD certified because they previously worked as EMTs, she said.
