Union says lapse “simply unacceptable”; service ‘crying out for new entries’
Technical errors in the selection process for INEM pre-hospital emergency technicians have seen to it that hundreds were excluded for no good reason.
Considering the service is crying out for new intake, STEPH (the union representing ambulance crews) is “demanding the removal” of the board that oversees recruitment.
As it is, INEM (the national institute for emergency medicine) has already ‘reinstated’ more than half the number of candidates – all of whom will now still face a rigorous selection process.
But that is not the point. STEPH is fuming over what this means generally: the service is beset with problems, not least lack of intake. How many perfectly adequate candidates have been blanked (for no good reason) in the past?
“This is very serious, especially at a time when INEM is so short of pre-hospital emergency technicians”, said STEPH’s president Rui Lazaro.
The “lack of attractiveness” of the career already means that there are few candidates for vacancies, he added. Thus “errors on this scale are unacceptable”.
Asked by Lusa as to what kind of errors Lazaro detected, he explained that several candidates were excluded on the basis that they did not have a special endorsement on their driving licence, “when, because they have a licence to drive heavy vehicles, they do not need such an endorsement”.
“We think this may have been one of the factors that excluded the most candidates. If this is true, it’s a very serious mistake and one that a selection board for a recruitment drive of this importance should not and cannot make”.
Earlier this month, STEPH was already saying it was ‘very concerned’ about hiring prospects, fearing the selection process wouldn’t even come up with the 25% of candidates managed in earlier years.
The initial list included 407 candidates, but excluded 419 – for 200 vacancies . More than half of these 419 have now been reinstated, after errors in the analysis of their cases were detected.
Candidates will now have to pass several stages, which include a knowledge test, a curriculum assessment, a basic driving test, a psychological assessment, physical tests and a defensive driving course. This is followed by training, which may also exclude some candidates.
When INEM announced that the government had authorised the hiring of 200 new ambulance crew in August, it explained that the recruitment drive provided for the distribution of vacancies at regional level, with the largest number going to the Northern Regional Delegation (90 slots), followed by Lisbon, Vale do Tejo/ Alentejo (50), the Central Regional Delegation (40), and the Algarve (20).
Source: Lusa
