Weren't we just talking about this? "Delayed ambo respo

[CBEMT]

I'm too brain-fried to remember the thread, but it probably deserves it's own anyway....

http://www.westword.com/2008-06-05/news/de...rgency-response

[Just Plain Ruff]

Just another fine example that things rarely get done until it directly affects someone in power. In this case the president of the city council's sister waited for an ambulance and she died. (she would have died anyway probabaly but just for sake of argument, the wait helped hasten her demise).

Now this guy is president of city council and he's remembering that incident.

Denver general has been spun off into the housing department, which of course is the correct agency for it to be under, as the housing department surely knows how to take care of the projects and section 8 housing so let's let them run the ambulance service instead of allowing the ambulance service to run itself. (which sounds like in this case was an even worse idea).

Now they are re-evaluating DG's contract and have urged DG to hire an independent EMS consultant - FAT CHANCE when that independent consultant will report the inefficiencies and problems, no way is DG gonna do that, that would show that they are inept and this president of the city council is really looking for something to hang em for is what they are thinking.

There is much more to the article and it's really well written but the bottom line is this......

Too few resources and too few ideas. It's time to hold the people who make these decisions accountable and not blame the ems workers which happens so frequently.

[Just Plain Ruff]

One thing that galls me all the time is this statement, if EMS was under fire they'd arrive faster. Here is a quote from the article

"Petre openly admits that he wants to see paramedics get out from under Denver Health. But he insists that the move would mean as much to the people using the paramedics' services as to the paramedics themselves — by putting a stop to the ever-lengthening response times. The fire department has units strategically placed at 31 stations around the city, which allows a response time that, on average, is two to five minutes faster than that of paramedics. If the paramedics division became part of the fire department, Petre says, ambulances could arrive just as quickly"

This is just a stupid stupid statement but the dumb public will eat it up. The reason it is a stupid statement is this.

it assumes that the ambulances will always respond from the fire stations or from their home base. What about the ambulances that are at the hospital. What about the ambulances that are out on calls already, they surely don't have ambulances lined up at the fire stations ready to roll out. LIke a pez dispenser, one ambulance (pez) pops out on a call and the next ambulance (pez) moves up to fill that place of the first one.

The arrogance of these people is amazing. If EMS was only fire based all the worlds problems would be fixed.

you can polish a turd but in the end it will always be a turd.

[FormerEMSLT297]

Was I the onlty one to catch the time line,,,, his sister was shot 6 years ago..... you're going to have to give me a little more updated stats than that.....

Talk aboue day late and dollar short... boy

[Just Plain Ruff]

Was I the onlty one to catch the time line,,,, his sister was shot 6 years ago..... you're going to have to give me a little more updated stats than that.....

Talk aboue day late and dollar short... boy

LT, he took his time to get the ball rolling. He's like the Slowsky's on the Comcast high speed internet commercials. They take their time getting things done.

It took the Slowskys 7 years to meet their neighbors so I guess it took this guy 6 years to get this looked at.

Regardless - response times are dismal, morale is low and attrition is bad. Can it get any worse? Yeah it can, just ask the families who have to wait 20 minutes to get an ambulance.

I propose this. Let's get a small core group of people on this forum, have a business meeting and form our own EMS consulting group. Charge less than the current yahoo's who aren't providing value and begin to revamp the entire EMS industry.

I'll start the ball rolling, I'll offer KC MO as the first meeting venue. Who's up for this?

[Chief1C]

Perhaps their system is flawed. However, I think it's quite common to wait for an ambo, anywhere. Small town, big city; there will never be enough ambulances for everyone that calls. Someone is always going to be at the farthest point in a coverage area. Maybe if officials made a decision to stop sending out ambulances like taxi's, this wouldn't happen so frequently. I bet just with in the last ten minutes, a dozen heart attack victims had to wait, because someone was shuttling a BS call to the ER.

[Amhet1]

Damn! I brought this up Denver the other day another of my long-winded rants!

22 ambulances

500,000 people

150 sq miles

I think Denver Fire said 44 fire trucks from 31 stations in 6 divisions not including DIA

And then theres DIA.....

1 FT ambulance assigned with 5 personnel

27 fire apparatus (politically correct fire term)

87 personnel assigned

WendyT is from that area and knows more about the situation than I do, but as she pointed out, there are a large number of privates that are riding the Denver Health gravy train. When DH is maxed out on 911 calls, they hand them off to the privates.

I beleive I read that it was SouthMetro Fire than that has the best of all possible worlds... They have ALS ambulances and Action Care ambulance responds with them. If South Metro doesnt want the transport (boring BLS call that wont pay anyway), they let Action Care

have it.

The other little surprise I found out was that Northglenn and Platte Valley are the only CAAS certified providers in the Denver area..... and interestingly, there are only 5 (yes, 5) FD run EMS services with CAAS certification! Im too lazy to look right now, but I think I remember there are only about 300 services in the US that meet those standards.

FMI: http://www.caas.org/

Oh and for the discussion at hand.... The President of the City Council probably needed that 6 years to get into a position that he could ensure a complete screwing of Denver Paramedics. And just think, LT, IF Denver Fire integrates Denver Paramedics, they can have an ambulance at every station and another 10 or 20 in reserve and increase their manning by at least another 300 people (crosstrained on fire too) and give them complete justification to bbuild another 10 stations and add another complete division with all the admin support staff and on and on and on.... and with that one change there will be no more unemployment in Denver. [/sarcasm]

I would love to walk into a scene and announce myself as an EMT with Denver Housing Paramedics. :shrugs:

[Eydawn]

DUDE! Do not *ever* confuse me with WendyT, who is a Canadian. I am Eydawn. My real name is Wendy, and I sign my posts as such.

Sorry, lol... PM me and I'll clue you in to why I want that separated.

Wendy (NO T!)

CO EMT-B

[Amhet1]

DUDE! Do not *ever* confuse me with WendyT, who is a Canadian. I am Eydawn. My real name is Wendy, and I sign my posts as such.

Sorry, lol... PM me and I'll clue you in to why I want that separated.

Wendy (NO T!)

CO EMT-B

My retardation now preceeds me :oops: At least you and I knew what I meant. Hey, at least I got the name right... and thats something that you really need to do when having sex. Um, I think thats a different thread...... disregard.

[Mateo_1387]

:laughing3: