Are volunteer BLS services beneficial?

[Ridryder 911]

Why not lobby the hospital and get some volunteer Doctors and Nurses to ride the ambulance?

Yeah, sign me up at $40 hr and my Doc just said he will for a mere $250/hr...

Are you on drugs Rocker? ...

R/r 911

[EMTrocker]

It was just a thought. Who knows????

[paramedicmike]

The argument was made earlier about others who may provide their services for free.

Some software is, indeed, available for free. However, don't think for a second that people aren't, in some way, making a profit off of other products and services they offer. At some point, you will pay for those software services in some way, shape or form.

Doctors and lawyers may provide pro bono work. However, the services they offer under these conditions do not constitute primary access to medical/legal advice. Nor do they make up the primary introduction to their respective areas of expertise.

Doctors who volunteer their time generally do so in situations and conditions where people have *no* other option. Doctors Without Borders, for example, act as medical care in areas where people barely have food much less access to regular medical screening.

Lawyers who take pro bono cases don't take them at the expense of their entire caseload. They are still paid, quite well at that, for the work they do. And don't think that pro bono work won't be used to the cash benefit of the lawyer. I seem to remember something about "There's no such thing as bad PR...".

As such, you can't compare an organization that provides full time, 24/7 services at no charge with anyone else who might provide low cost or even free care to individual cases while, at the same time, charging full price to their other customers.

If volly BLS squads continue to offer the services for free, then municipalities will continue to short change their constituents by allowing substandard services. Municipalities *can* afford full time paramedic level care to their communities. They just won't so long as they're getting something much less for free.

In the meantime, residents don't receive any benefit from what coverage is available...if it's available at all. This is another reason why volunteer BLS squads are not beneficial.

-be safe

[Scaramedic]

This again!!

My answer is dependent on where you live.

Does Arvada, Colorado need a Volunteer Fire Department? They had the largest volly dept until they just recently started going paid. They are a city of over 100,000. There is no reason that they were volunteer and contracting out their ALS to AMR. Is volly BLS beneficial in that situation? No, it's plain stupid.

Now here in my home state and county we have some pretty remote towns. Such a place is Northwoods, WA. It is about 70 miles up in the mountains. It is mostly cabins for occasional use. But there are full time residents up there. Now granted they are Ward Weaver kind of people but they have a BLS volly department.

The nearest ALS would be Woodland, which is a good hour, hour and a half, not happening at certain times of the year. So in this case and cases like this, is the only reason I see Volly BLS being beneficial.

BLS Volly services are not beneficial to a community five minutes from a city with ALS though. I am still waiting for people to volunteer to clean the bathrooms or weld over the glory holes in the stalls. Now that might be beneficial.

[Don1977]

Here we go again.....

[Scuba_Steve]

In a perfect world maybe......but I know in our small town that even with these amateur volunteers, our paid ALS are stretched to the max on any given day....

Why are they being called "amateurs", for being volunteers? I know plenty of great ALS and BLS volunteers, as well as un-professional paid ALS and BLS providers. Just because they are not being paid for the time that they donate to their communities does note make them any less professional.

[Katee]

To answer just the question at hand... "are volunteer ems services beneficial?"

Yes...

Out here in the boonies, where you're half an hour from the hospital, its absolutely necessary to have volly ems services.

Most of you think that volly ems services comprised entirely by EMT's are a waste of time...

If that is indeed how you feel, then think of it as a calming effect, much like giving a child a lollypop at the doctor's office.

I'm offering some of you "haters", so to speak to come out and see how things operate here.

[Dustdevil]

Just because they are not being paid for the time that they donate to their communities does note make them any less professional.

But it does, by definition, make them amateur.

I don't write the dictionary. I just enforce it.

[JPINFV]

Out here in the boonies, where you're half an hour from the hospital, its absolutely necessary to have volly ems services.

Half hour from the hospital!=volunteer BLS squad? If anything, having a longer transport time is a reason for a professional paramedic first response service.

[Dustdevil]

Most of you think that volly ems services comprised entirely by EMT's are a waste of time...

If that is indeed how you feel, then think of it as a calming effect, much like giving a child a lollypop at the doctor's office.

Yep, that's exactly what it is. A placebo, to distract the patient's parents from ever realising that the doctor is never coming. The lollypop is what they get instead of a doctor.

And you call that beneficial?