The city’s 11,000 EMS workers will soon have access to wellness programs, helping them better contend with the traumatic situations they deal with on a near-daily basis.
The programs, instituted through a $1 million pilot initiative backed by the Council’s Progressive Caucus as part of its “Crisis to Care” platform, was included in the city's Fiscal Year 2026 budget.
One of the pilot’s biggest beneficiaries will be the Regional EMS Council of New York City, which has run a peer support program since 2001. The money will be used to “aggressively expand” REMSCO’s 24/7 peer support hotline by expanding the peer support team and training more EMS workers, the not-for-profit’s executive director, Joseph Raneri, said in an interview.
“One of the challenges that’s always existed with that team is to get real dedicated funding and to get consistent funding to ensure the team’s operations,” he said of the support program. “We’re happy that the city is acknowledging this is a need, and happy that our EMS professionals are finally getting some of the support that they need that’s been long overdue.”
Raneri doesn’t yet know how much of the $1 million REMSCO will receive, but he hopes to increase the number of training seminars for EMS workers interested in becoming peer support professionals. “New York is a city of nine million people, and we want to make sure that they are treated by providers who are the best trained and equipped in the world,” he said.
Council Member Sandy Nurse, who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus, said that she and her colleagues wanted to support EMS workers any way they could, particularly since the Council doesn’t have any say in the city’s bargaining with public-sector EMS workers and even much less with regard to private-sector EMT and paramedic wages.
Nurse said she was thrilled that the Council was able to include the “Wellness & Peer Support Program” for EMS workers, who contend with traumatic situations on a near-daily basis. “Our frontline workers have been really underinvested in for quite some time,” she added.
‘Call to action’ on parity
Eight EMS workers died by suicide during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and since then there’s been an increased focused on supporting EMT and paramedic mental health.
Unions representing EMS workers were grateful for the Council’s focus on EMTs and paramedics, who are generally paid far less than other first responders in the city.
"I am grateful, thankful that the Council listened to us and heard our cries for help," said Oren Barzilay, president of Local 2507, a union representing FDNY EMTs and paramedics. "Many of us are struggling with PTSD because of the jobs we do on a daily basis. Hopefully there will be more funding and future Council support for therapy."
Tori Newman-Campbell, the legislative coordinator of the Service Employees International Union Local 1199, was also thankful for the Council’s funding. Local 1199 represents about 3,000 EMS workers across the state.
“More peer-to-peer mental health services and a newly created pilot program offering peer support to EMS workers, are two examples of initiatives in this budget that will address the concerns of some of this city’s healthcare workers,” she said in a statement. "Providing support uniquely designed to meet the needs of mental health providers and first responders will help support these frontline workers whose work makes our city a safer place.”
Barzilay, though, noted that $50 million the Council had earmarked in its preliminary budget for “EMS Pay Parity” was left out of the final $115.9 billion spending plan.
Nurse said the omission of the parity funding was a “call to action.” She said that her Council colleagues firmly believed that EMS workers in both the private and public sector are underpaid.
“This is something we could do and it’s the start of some real attention to those first responders,” she said of the mental health pilot. “It shows that the Council feels really strongly that there is an issue here and it needs to be dealt with.”
An FDNY spokesperson, Amanda Farinacci, said the department was supportive of the pilot program, which she called “a vital initiative that will provide additional mental health and peer support services for our EMS professionals, who bravely serve New Yorkers in their darkest hours.”
The municipal budget also includes $2.57 million for 35 new civilian FDNY positions including within human resources, planning and fiscal management. Another $3.55 million disbursed over the next five years will fund 58 new positions in the Bureau of Fire Prevention.
Farinacci said the new positions will help the department “sustain improvements to the Bureau of Fire Prevention and reduce plan review and inspection times.”
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