NIC REDDEN
advanced life support paramedic
I started as a paramedic in 2010, and have been doing night shifts for three years now. I used to work a rotating roster of day and night shifts, but now I work 14-hour nights – which start at 5pm – three days a week. The nature of an emergency service is that you’re not always out working, so we do a lot of studying, training, relaxing and sleeping during shifts. Our branch is basically set up like a fire station, with a kitchen, TV, training area and bedrooms. If we don’t have a call to attend to, we're pretty much left to our own devices.
There is, however, a lot of incidental overtime in the role, so the night shift roster is designed for us to sleep when we can. We might get called out 20 minutes before we’re scheduled to finish, but we can’t just wait for the next team – we have to go out and do the job straight away. That inability to determine when we’ll be able to go home means we need to rest up as much as possible. Sleeping at work is never really restful, though. You’re just waiting for the pager to go off, so you’re never 100 per cent refreshed, but at least you don't feel like you’re about to die of tiredness.
At our rural branch, I might only do two callouts in a night, but those jobs might take nine hours due to the distance between houses and the hospital. When I was working in the city, I’d often do five or six jobs in one night. No two days are really the same when you’re a paramedic. There’s always a different setting, different people. You’re learning every single day, because it’s such a broad field. I don’t like having a set routine, so an ambulance job kind of works for me in that way. It does get a bit spooky when I get called out in the middle of the night, though – having to drive out to Woop Woop by myself.
Shift workers can be a bit incestuous due to the working hours. A lot of people have partners in the industry, because sometimes you’re just working with one other person, basically running the show on your own. I’m sure there's a lot of stuff that goes on, on the sly. As far as spare time goes, I think you either need to find other people who work similar hours to you, or have a lot of solitary hobbies. On my days off, I like to build things, cook and play basketball. Sometimes I’ll go away and do hikes or little trips with my friends. My partner works 9 to 5, so we usually just see each other half the week. But I see our time together as a pay-off for working – I have to do this job in order to go and do other things with her.