Hamish Bidwell: You can tell a lot about a country by how it treats its frontline workers

Members of the Professional Firefighters' Union went on strike for an hour in Napier last week. Photo / Paul Taylor

OPINION: I've only had to attend two "fatals'' in my journalistic career.

I've spent most of the past three decades waffling on about sport instead.

I remember those two instances clearly, though.

One was a road accident and the other a house fire, in which children died.

By the time I reached each, in the company of a photographer, emergency services were on the scene, dealing with the devastation before them and keeping the rest of us at bay.

Without being able to see a lot, it's the sounds of grief that stay with me. I hope never to have to hear those sounds again.

The paper I worked for at the time used an ambulance driver as a contact. We were trying to service a large area and didn't always have the staff to attend accident scenes.

We relied on that ambulance driver to describe the nature of the incident and whatever injuries might've been sustained.

Day or night, he took our calls and, with great care and sensitivity for those involved, recounted what events he could.

Twenty years on, I still have that driver's number in my contact book. I think of him sometimes - and the things that he's seen - and hope he's doing well.

I've lived in a couple of provincial towns since that time and, whenever I hear that siren sound to summon volunteer firefighters, my heart sinks. I hope it's a cat stuck up a tree or a kid who's mucked around with a school fire alarm.

More often than not, though, someone's worst nightmare has suddenly unfolded and it's our first responders rushing to pick up the pieces.

Hamish Bidwell. Photo/ Warren Buckland

Members of the Professional Firefighters' Union went on strike for an hour last week.

I'm not a striker by nature. In fact, when staff from Hawke's Bay Today walked off the job for two weeks in the early 2000s, I was one of the half-dozen or so who continued to put the paper out.

I always thought the readers came first and my interests a distant second.

But I was only typing for a living. I mean, what did I have to complain about?

Firefighters, and their ilk, are rather different.

Everyone wants to be paid more. They want better equipment, better working conditions and more time off.

They want recognition for the work they do and the sacrifices they make in order for New Zealand to be a better place.

There's some of that in the Professional Firefighters Union's dispute with Fire and Emergency New Zealand. But the guts of it is these firefighters have reached their mental and physical breaking point.

These firefighters, like doctors and nurses and police, are exposed to the worst of this country. They mop up the mess so we don't have to - and what do they get for it?

Well, they get to read about government bureaucracy ballooning to record figures.

Striking or aggrieved workers always present a compelling case. They're the battlers, surviving on less so others can continue to have more.

But you can tell a lot about a country from the way they treat people in frontline services.

I'm not sure we treat ours too well and, as a nation, we can't be proud of that.