What does restricting personnel who cannot wear these boots solve?

Well NOTHING!!!!

There is nothing special about these new boots, compared to the older boots. At least nothing that has to do with our particular jobs or work.
• They are larger than same size of the older style.
• The rib design, make them difficult to walk downstairs while carrying a patient in a stair chair. The ribs hit the lower back bar of the chair, which make you have to carry the patient higher and/or more forward. This had the potential to increase injuries to our personnel and even potentially the patient.
• They are higher on your ankles than the original boots and more restrictive. So performing many of the movements that we do on a daily basis becomes more difficult and often painful.
Restricting Personnel:
• We are already at low staffing levels with overtime rampant. So restricting personnel, creates 2 problems.
1. Creates a vacancy that will now need to be staffed with overtime
2. A person that would be available to cover for existing vacancies is no longer available.

Doing what is easy, to do something..

Yes, maybe that is what it is. They cannot fix the staffing levels. They cannot improve response times, they cannot make sure that ambulances are fully stocked with Medications, but they can easily restrict personnel from working, while still paying them.