Essay by Luke Foster
“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”—John Wayne. EMTs and paramedics have difficult and dangerous jobs. They know the risks, and yet every day, they prepare for the challenge, load up their gear, and race out to the next emergency. This is the courage that makes them real heroes.
Unknown quote from the Internet
Today when I was walking past a local café on the way to the beach, I passed three paramedics having a coffee at the café and then started thinking about how they are campaigning now to get a better pay rate as I saw on the tv news last night. I think they deserve a ten percent pay rise but perhaps 6 percent would be more realistic.
I have so much respect and time for paramedics as I saw how compassionate and educated they are in the last few years while living with mum and had to call the ambulance as she got sick and sometimes had to be taken to hospital. Their bedside manner was amazing, and they also could see how worried I was and looked after me too.
I can’t imagine how strenuous their training must be to work at such a high level. Their job requires so many high-level skills.
However, I can imagine that the education for paramedics, doctors, nurses, support workers, and teachers in Australia is comprehensive and the government should be congratulated for this high level of education and high pay rates, but their jobs are so strenuous that I still feel they deserve a pay rise.
I returned to study to be an art teacher at Sydney University and finished the course at Southern Cross University so I know how intense the training can be to be a teacher. However, I have never worked to be a teacher in Australia as it was perhaps not for me, but I have used some of the ideas from the course in my writing with ideas such as win/win situations.
“If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes.”
Guy Kawasaki
I think the most important job of a teacher is to teach the next generation how to be compassionate and how to save the planet, so we leave the world in as good a condition as we found it is now or even better.
I think the health system in Australia is as good as the education system and politicians past and present in Australia should be congratulated for building such high level and affordable systems. However, if the pay rates were higher for teachers at school and university level and for doctors and nurses then these fields would attract the best and brightest and they would be motivated to work better.
I think the following quote applies to all the jobs in this essay:
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
—Albert Schweitzer
I have never met anyone in these fields in Australia who doesn’t love what they are doing and that’s why the standard in these fields is so high.
I also think support workers in Australia are of a very high standard particularly those being funded by the NDIS or the National, Disability Insurance Scheme. Their pay is high but deserve more too.