Sirsoky - a UK NHS paramedic gets about £25K - we pay our winchmen a lot more than that!
The fundamental problem with your argument is that of working environment - our winchmen don't have to be medical gurus (they are well trained though) they have to be fit, strong and bloody brave - they also have to be very competent helicopter operators. The training and selection process to get a paramedic would need to be the equivalent of what we do now because the product cannot afford to be any less capable.
Anyone who thinks being a SAR winchman is the same as being an ambulance paramedic but in a different uniform is kidding themselves and clearly has never been winched over 1000' of fresh air in the mountains, clung to an icy cliff in a gale, been dumped unceremoniously onto a violently pitching deck in the dark or any of the hundreds of DANGEROUS positions a SAR winchman has to be prepared to go in order to save lives.
It's not the the light blue need to open their minds, it is that those who think they can do SAR on the cheap don't really understand what the job is about. The civilian winchmen on SAR are made of the same stern stuff as the military and the pilots are equally skilled - do you want to take a CPL with R22 time and put him in as a SAR captain? Think of the money it would save and after all, SAR can't be that difficult can it?
