When you call 911, every second matters. Yet emergency medical services services across the country are increasingly strained.
A 2025 study from the University of Washington’s Center for Health Workforce Studies found that 23% of EMS professionals left the field in 2023, up from 16% in 2018, meaning nearly one in four workers exited the profession.
These shortages contribute to increased burnout, longer response times and added pressure on an already strained emergency care system.
In Maine, the challenge is even greater, with an aging population of both providers and residents and vast rural areas that require longer response times.
Filling EMS workforce gaps
Building a pipeline of trained professionals is essential to Maine’s emergency health care system.
The Maine Community College System has responded to workforce shortages through targeted training programs and community partnerships designed to move students quickly from the classroom to the ambulance.
Finances and distance were major barriers preventing many prospective Emergency Medical Technicians and paramedics from entering the field, according to Don Sheets, EMS program coordinator at MCCS. Funding from the Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan and the Harold Alfond Center allows MCCS to offer qualifying EMT and Advanced EMT (AEMT) programs free of charge.
MCCS is also expanding access to training. Washington County Community College became an authorized training center, and York County Community College partnered with Southern Maine Community College to offer EMS programming. Through a distributive education model, students complete coursework online and gather locally for hands on labs, often with community partners. For example, Eastern Maine Community College collaborates with MaineHealth EMS to host lab cohorts in the Farmington area.
“They’re offering their lectures through distributive education, and then they’re creating local lab cohorts in more local communities, so people can come together for those lab cohorts but be closer to home,” Sheets says. “That’s providing us with new access to areas of the state that we hadn’t necessarily been offering education consistently before.”
This flexible model also helps recruit instructors, many of whom work full time rotating shifts that conflict with traditional schedules, making it easier for experienced providers to train the next generation.
The approach appears to be working. Since 2020, workforce programs funded by the Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan and the Harold Alfond Center have added 1,192 EMTs and 137 AEMTs to Maine’s workforce, in addition to the 300 to 450 EMS students who graduate from MCCS academic programs each year.
The real-world impact of a strained system
The loss of EMS workers is more pronounced in rural communities that often lack the budgets to attract and retain EMTs and paramedics. Towns that once relied heavily on volunteers, but rising living costs now require many people to work more, leaving fewer available to serve. In many rural areas, the volunteer EMS workforce has largely disappeared.
The town of Greenville illustrates both the growing challenges and determination of rural responders.
Since 2017, emergency calls to Greenville’s fire station have tripled, according to Sawyer Murray, the fire department’s chief and only full-time employee serving an area of 850 square miles.
Increased population and tourism have strained the system, leading to longer response times, especially when multiple emergencies occur at once.
“On staff, there’s only one EMS crew. So even if you get two EMS calls, they’re toning for a second crew to try to backfill that other call or toning the fire department as first responders. And that’s difficult,” Murray says. “The fire department doesn’t have a transporting license, so we’re ultimately the first responding service until an ambulance frees up to be able to come to assist on the second call if there’s two going at once.”
One solution is an emergency agreement with Northern Light Medical Transport, allowing Greenville’s fire department to backfill as a driver during urgent situations when Northern Light provides a licensed EMS clinician to help cover gaps.
This reliance on emergency backfilling and mutual aid also impacts surrounding communities. Response times can stretch further when responders must travel long distances or reach injured hikers or snowmobilers deep in the woods, rescues that can take hours or even overnight.
Emergency medicine in the wild
Kevin Springer, ambulance services supervisor for Northern Light Medical Transport & Emergency Care at CA Dean Hospital in Greenville, understands the challenges of emergency care in remote areas.
“It’s a different ballgame up here. It’s not that we’re out on calls 24 hours a day, but there are times that you could be up in the woods for 12 to 24 hours or overnight in the woods with a patient,” Springer says. “There’s been days when I’ve traveled by truck, by ambulance, by boat, by seaplane, by canoe just to get to patients. It’s really a different animal in EMS up here with the wilderness aspect of it.”
Springer is the only full-time paramedic who lives in Greenville. His team includes 12 EMTs, four intermediates, two per diem paramedics and two additional full-time paramedics.
Recruiting providers remains difficult. In previous generations, volunteers were the backbone of rural EMS, but rising costs have made volunteerism increasingly difficult.
“I mean we joke around about EMS and say it’s not about the pay, and it really isn’t, but when you’re getting paid $13 an hour for work 12-hour shifts or 24-hour shifts and when you’re saving lives but you can go make double that flipping burger somewhere, it just doesn’t make sense, especially in the economy these days where you need one or two jobs just to make it. It just doesn’t cut it anymore,” Springer says. Low pay makes it difficult to recruit EMS workers.
Despite workforce shortages and long distances, EMS providers in rural Maine continue to answer the call. Whether responding to multiple emergencies or navigating rugged terrain, their work ensures that even in the most remote communities, help is still on the way when it matters most.
