This is why unions should be outlawed in public safety

[usalsfyre]

So you don't like public agencies, AMR and R/M are evil...have you considered the fact that perhaps your views are in no way objective and your refusal to see this makes them mostly invalid to other people?

[BushyFromOz]

FUnny how people who hate nions are either in a managerial apacity or who have not not been a part of on oppressed workforce with sub-standard and even dangerous conditions along with shitty pay were the norm. I mean, how dare a group of workers think they are worth more.

I dont condone militant unionism but geez, the concept should be embraced more

[Paramagic]

Am I missing something here?

You are missing the fact that unions are BAD. Big companies are BAD. 911 services are BAD. Employees are BAD. I suspect also that patients are BAD. I'm not really sure that anything is good. Money? Disconnection from reality?

[JPINFV]

FUnny how people who hate nions are either in a managerial apacity or who have not not been a part of on oppressed workforce with sub-standard and even dangerous conditions along with shitty pay were the norm. I mean, how dare a group of workers think they are worth more.

I dont condone militant unionism but geez, the concept should be embraced more

If the unions can make EMS act like professionals, then I'm all for it. However I don't see the unions pressing for more education and making sure that the average provider is willing and able to use personal judgement, think past the cookbook-ocol (I think I invented a new term), or make a hard decision without punting to medical control.

Now, how much is a group of people in a technical trade that is overloaded with applicants and where the average provider cries out for someone else to make their tough decisions for them worth?

[hatelilpeepees]

I have no idea what the call volume in Atlanta is, but I'm still unclear on a couple things. Does Grady refer the nonemergent calls to other hospitals and city agencies or do they simply schedule appointments with their own clinics and outpatient services?

On the surface, weeding out the BS calls seems like a good idea, but it seems to me the way this is done contributes to the delays in sending out equipment for emergency services.

Am I missing something here?

Guess I should have explained that better. Grady is the trauma center/ indigent downtown hospital, that also operates clinics, and has ambulance service for 911. Non-emergent calls are routed to Grady Dispatch, and patients are triaged to see if they can go to clinic instead of ER. If questionable, ambulance is sent to assess patient and decides to take to ER or clinic. If patient is truly non-emergent (roach in ER, minor LAC, the flu) they are scheduled a clinic visit in the next 2-3 days. The call volume is huge, and the typical wait in the ER could be 16-24 hours with patients stacked in the hallways.

[BushyFromOz]

Obviously the IR climate we live in here is a tad different from yours JP

[Richard B the EMT]

9-1-1 calls in NYC are initialy answered by "civilian" police communications technicians, who, on determining the call is either a Fire call or an EMS call, sends the initial information to the appropriate call taking area (they handle PD by themselves). If EMS, a short list of questions, using a "flip-book" is asked of the caller, to whit, "Is the patient Awake? Breathing? male or female, what seems to be wrong?" That way, the call can be prioritized by means of our 50 something call-types, which are also set up for BLS only, ALS only, or both. The flip-book is an "Emergency Medical Dispatch" formatting, similar to the one originally created by Dr. Jeff Clawson, and both give followup first aid instructions to be read to the caller.

Some of the lesser call types can be upgraded by the call takers, say, a person with pain in the arm gets one priority level, but if over 60 years old, same call gets the priority rased.

Some notations here: The police and EMS call takers, while in different local unions, are the same "parent" union. The EMS call takers are actually EMTs and Paramedics, so are the same union as the folks in the ambulances. While not the same "parent" union, the Fire call takers and dispatchers are unionized (MIGHT be same parent union, I'm uncertain on specifics).

As for buzz words like "Heart Attack"? As TV's "Dr House" knows and says, "People lie". We have "professional 9-1-1 callers", and presume most metropolises have them, too. Want an ambulance, fast? Say "Heart Attack". Want the LEOs forthwith? Say "Shots fired".

Oh, I nearly forgot. An area in Brooklyn, still under the NYC 9-1-1 system, was taken over by a non union (no union of any type) ambulance service provider. They had a Cardiac Arrest, priority one call, but took longer to respond, allowing the patient to die on the scene, than a TV news truck covering the death, and even stopping for the traffic lights, travelling the distance from where the ambulance was street staging. Let an FDNY EMS crew do that, the union would try to blast the crew before management could. (Whn my local sees that a crew truely messed up, they distance themselves from the wrongdoers) Same for the ambulances in system, based at hospitals (different union). The blasting of the wrongdoers would be arriving in hours, at max, a week.

In the case of the non union provider crew, punishment was almost a year later, not from the company they worked for, but the State DoH, following a complaint from the family of the deceased.

[JPINFV]

Obviously the IR climate we live in here is a tad different from yours JP

IR?

[BushyFromOz]

IR?

Industrial Relations