IS THIS AN EMERGENCY?...

Now most of you know I write most of my articles after getting upset at something, well this is no different. 

 

You see in my city we have firemen/paramedics that ride ALS ambulances and ALS fire engines/trucks. This is actually a great service to this city because this means that within 4 minutes, on most occasions, of you calling 9-1-1 for whatever your emergency is, a paramedic will be on seen. This is great for us citizens. Now let's be honest here for a second, one man's emergency is another man's hang nail. We can all agree that not all emergencies are created equal right? But these firemen/paramedics do not get to choose which emergency they should go to first. The stub toe gets just as much priority as the cardiac arrest, I know that sounds horrible right? And when you live in a city that has a population of over 300,000 and the city only has 9 ambulances to transport patients to local emergency rooms, the system can get taxed very quickly. 

 

Now this is where most people that read my articles will think that I am going to go into a rant as to how to fix the system. Wrong! We all know what we need to do to fix the system, education, more ambulances, and more staffing. What I want to discuss today and what obviously got me alittle fired up is, when our own system works against them. Let me explain....

 

In this city we have many first responders. We have firemen, police officers, sheriffs officers, etc. Now I looked up the definition of first responder and here is what I found..

 

1.  The first person to arrive at an emergency scene. Often, first responder is used as a general term for all emergency service personnel who are expected to respond to medical emergencies or large-scale disasters

 

2. A public safety official -- such as a police officer or firefighter -- certified to provide basic life support skills similar to an EMT. When referring to a certified First Responder, the term is capitalized.  

 

Let's look at these a little closer. The first definition states the first person to arrive on a emergency scene but often it is a general term for all emergency service personnel who are expected to respond to emergencies. Ok I think we all can understand that, but it is the second definition that is what really got my attention. The second definition is more clear as to what a first responder really is. A PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICIAL SUCH AS A POLICE OFFICER OR FIREFIGHTER, CERTIFIED TO PROVIDE BASIC LIFE SUPPORT SKILLS SIMILAR TO AN EMT.

 

Now some of you may be catching on as to how our system is hurting itself. You see this city has medic units (ambulances) that make any where from 18 to 28 calls on a regular basis. Try and remember there are only 24 hours in these men and women's shifts. Many of these calls that are made by these ambulances are at the request of a police officer. They need a HIGHLY TRAINED, NO THEY NEED TWO HIGHLY TRAINED PARAMEDICS, to inspect scratches, bumps, bruises, minor cuts, etc. They will even call for a ambulance and at times a fire engine/truck even after people have stated they do not need nor want EMS.  So while a ALS ambulance is tied up placing a band-aid on a finger, or and ambulance is tied up cleaning the hands of a person in custody because they can't transport them "that way", someone is having a full blown heart attack, stroke, or diabetic emergency. Now it is true, another ambulance and or fire engine/truck will make that call but their response time will be increased tremendously. When we are talking about minutes are muscles, meaning that for every minute a medic is delayed to that patient they are having muscle damage to their organs. Well I am sure by now you can get where my frustration is today. But here is my question, and hopefully someone will be able to give me a answer that makes sense.

 

If a police officer, whom we have already determined to be a first responder and is trained to provide basic life support (and placing a band-aid on a finger is as basic as it gets), has the medical training to determine that a situation deems paramedics, hell they can even determine whether these ambulances go with lights and sirens or not. Why can they not use that same medical training to deem that scratch, abrasion, bump, etc. does not need two or even up to six paramedics and about a million dollars worth of apparatuses?

 

By not doing this they are making the system, which is already stacked against this city's EMS system, even harder to deal with. I am still waiting for that answer....