Know Your Enemy

[Dustdevil]

Boo hoo. They start a war, then whine like little bitches if anyone resists.

http://www.ems1.com/fire-ems/articles/1045354-Privatization-push-Can-fire-departments-survive

"Municipalities are considering doing things they never would have done previously; there's city after city looking at privatizing operations." Chief Metro told the session.

"There's a big move to privatize not just EMS service delivery that the fire service has traditionally owned, they are looking to privatize fire departments, too."

[Kaisu]

Very timely article Dust. The worm has turned in a big way. Here in our local community, city budget cuts are taking the biggest bite out of the fire department, and city council is in talks with the private to take over all medical response. As an employee working for the private, it is grim satisfaction. For years, the fire heroes looked down on us as they "owned the scene" and considered us hewers of wood and haulers of water for them. Things started changing a couple of years ago, when the economic downturn caused fire hiring/salaries/benefits, etc. to come to a screeching halt. The private medics received large raises, due in no small measure to the fiscal responsibility that is an absolute requirement for a private company.

I admire the special training that good fire departments acquire in extrications, tactical rescue and of course, fighting fires. They are in shape and sharp and good on them. What always infuriated me was the strangulation of para-medicine due in no small measure to the fire department's opposition of increased educational requirements. By the way, I realize the large privates are to blame for this as well.

Very interesting shift in the landscape and long overdue.

Thanks for posting.

[Dustdevil]

For years, the fire heroes looked down on us as they "owned the scene" and considered us hewers of wood and haulers of water for them.

In my experience, even if a non-fire agency runs EMS, the fire chief still uses his pull to assure that they are still the owners of the scene, and you still get shat upon. They convince the city managers and councilmen that it's necessary to assure the city maintains control over us common pirates, who, after all, are only in it for the money (unlike the firemen, who demand twice as much pay).

[Kaisu]

In my experience, even if a non-fire agency runs EMS, the fire chief still uses his pull to assure that they are still the owners of the scene, and you still get shat upon.

A little aside.. I run CCT ground with an RN and an EMT. We are in 911 rotation from 1800 to 0800. When we arrive on scene, it is our scene. Drove the powers to be in fire absolutely nuts. They pulled out all the stops to try and eliminate us from 911 runs. Put my partners and I under a microscope, trying to nitpick our calls. It backfired on them in a big way. I am better educated than most of them and my nurse rocks. They came out looking like fools.

[Kiwiology]

The enemy is Gary Ludwig, the IAFC EMS Section and IAFF EMS

Oh and the New World Order, they're pretty evil bastards too

[DwayneEMTP]

....The private medics received large raises, due in no small measure to the fiscal responsibility that is an absolute requirement for a private company...

Oh CM..you just lost every ounce of credibility with about 80% of the City that knows beyond all doubt that private industry is made up exclusively of heartless, money grubbing, motherfu*kers (Ok, so even I have a cursing line in the sand...)

As encouraging as this all is...the fire services didn't get where they are today by being politically ignorant or lazy. They're smart, entrenched, and have more money than God... I'll be interested to see how this moves forward..

Where the hell is Beiber? This thread will give him an instant woody!

Dwayne

[Chief1C]

The enemy is inside your wife?

[Bieber]

Dwayne, you know me so well.

Well guys, probably the most telling thing I can point out is this: there won't be an EMS response to this article or the conference it talks about. And that is exactly why we're losing this battle.

The fire guys are constantly having these conferences and writing these big, lengthy articles for fire chiefs basically telling them how to keep themselves afloat, and it basically always involves the takeover of EMS by fire services. But we in EMS never, EVER respond with any such conferences or articles of our own instructing EMS directors on how to keep the fire service out of our business and make it stay that way. Instead we spend all of our time going to two day cert classes and trauma/medical conferences and pretend its a substitute for actual higher education and then congratulate ourselves on being so "progressive" because our service has taken away ET intubation and practices minimalist (see, not always the same as sound) medicine instead of demanding educational standards rise to fix the problem of paramedic inadequacy.

This really isn't anything new, the fire service has been doing it for years. The tactics are generally the same. Private services are the devil, and even public independent EMS services can't deliver on scene times the way the fire department can, and the fire department is in the perfect position to handle EMS because they have a "standing army" of personnel ready to take over the minute EMS screws up.

The biggest disappointment in all of this is the fact that we really think we can't say anything to the fire departments or take a firm stance in opposition to fire-based EMS. Either because we're cowards and fear the retaliation of not only the fire department (see, lazy firefighters on scene refusing to assist), the public ("How dare you talk bad about America's heroes!"), or other fire-based EMS services (because they're at least half-cousins to us, even though we only see them at Christmas and kind of wish our meetings were even fewer and far between, because they always take two slices of pumpkin pie and we only made two of them and forgot to get a second can of whipped cream). So instead we stand idly by, apathetic and grinning like idiots. Aw, shucks, they're just being firefighters. We don't want to stifle them. Hey, wait, why are you painting my ambulance red?

It's basically a bunch of BS. What it really amounts to is we're a bunch of cowards. Those of us who haven't been in the business long enough to have an opinion keep our mouths shut because we don't have a good answer to the question of, "Well, what makes YOU think you know so much, newbie?" And those of us who have been in the job long enough to have any weight don't want to risk that juicy retirement or our comfy desk position by making a fuss.

We need to respond to this, but we probably won't. We'll just sit here in our forums, bitchin' and moanin', while the fire department slowly but steadily moves forward and continues to consume us.

There's a quote that you can equate somewhat to EMS, and that's that the world won't end in a bang but with a whimper. So will non-fire based EMS if we don't get off of our lazy butts, open our eyes and realize that we have to fight to survive just as much as the fire departments do.

[Kaisu]

knows beyond all doubt that private industry is made up exclusively of heartless, money grubbing, motherfu*kers

Dwayne

communist a**hole

[DwayneEMTP]

communist a**hole

Ohhh....kinda made my nipples hard to hear you talk dirty....

Dwayne