Beagle189 Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 ChazMedic is correct. These areas w/o money do exist and rely heavily on volunteers
Beagle189 Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 only you chazmedic -only you (other than myself) can have that weekend!
Ridryder 911 Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 I would still like to see state(s) requiring a financial disclosure of these communities and if there are surrounding communities that offer professional ALS services. Communities should be required to offer the best for their public. I am sure if there were attachments to federal or state grants, requiring EMS with full capabilities you might see more. Yes, there are poor economic developed areas, no doubt. What some communities do not realize, poor EMS, LEO, Fire agencies and even hospital (s) will even cause more. Many communities have community requirements to relocate or develop new industries. I know EMS is one of the avenues major companies explore. In a small community I worked at companies reviewed the EMS system, and did not even explore the local hospital. Their reason was that all there staff & families would be transported to a nearby metro area about 15 - 20 miles from the local town, so EMS as more influential in obtaining the company. R/R 911
naturegirl Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 I couldn't help but notice most of the posts regarding this subject come from people who live in more densely populated areas. I am a volunteer EMT in a city of 815, in a county of several thousand, in a state of less than a million. My service responds to maybe 150 calls a year, and a few mutual aid. Many of the EMT's here in the Dakota's are in farm and ranch country, covering a few hundred people and the freeways that connect us. There is NO way you can post anyone geographically central to respond to calls as infrequently as some of our runs end up. Some EMT's here are transporting patients 4 hours to a hospital. Would we like to get paid on par with professional, full time EMS providers? DUH! We have all the same problems that you all have listed over and above, but we volunteer because we are needed. I am 45 minutes from the nearest Level 2 trauma center. I know that the paid EMS look down on us for calling a helicopter but you transport someone critically ill 45 minutes and you'll see things differently. If I want to practice IV's I have to find a job. There is nowhere near the volume necessary to sideline a bunch of adrenaline junkies waiting for the nursing home to send one our way. It just isn't practical. Most of our EMS and fire are volunteer or "compensated volunteers" , except for the largest cites and reservations. However, we do get in enough training and we do take our services very seriously and do find once in a while we can actually save someone's life. This is remote country and everyone here knows they better be able to help themselves until help arrives. If you're ever driving through here, please be careful and remember on those long stretches between town, a volunteer who doesn't even know you will still come and help you. We'll care for you and apply all the skills and training we have because if you had to wait for a "professional EMS provider" you'd be waiting a LONG time. We all know the train is coming and we were very vocal about part of the review and input that hopefully slowed down the new changes until they can address places such as South Dakota. It would be more helpful if some of these folks that want to make these changes actually came out here and tried to see what we face every day. And yes, I do respond from my home and I can still be enroute in less than 4 minutes, day or night. We volunteer to serve our communites, our families, our neighbors. Please don't mistake the fact that I volunteer for being less professional. When we respond, most of the time, it IS our families, our friends and our neighbors. And THAT is not even in the same world as all this backbiting and finger pointing I am seeing here on these posts. I don't need to be paid to be part of the solution.
Ridryder 911 Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 Again, if you look at most of the post, we recognize frontier and very rural communities. The concern is some communities with 25-150,000 or >; people that claim they cannot establish a paid service. This is hogwash.. R/R 911
nsmedic393 Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 Perhaps if you had a state-wide service, the larger centers could provide enough money to staff ambulances in lower call volume areas. For instance the town I work in has a population of 500 and we cover a large rural area yet we have two ambulances. One is 24/7 and the other is 12 hour days monday to thursday.
Dustdevil Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 Trust me, the area I am talking about does not have the money. This has been going on for 10 years. If the people refuse to pay, what can you do? Their hospital shut down 6 months ago and in today's paper their own lawyers are suing for payment. Refusing to pay and not having the money are two completely different things. You can bet the county's lawyer's get paid. The sheriff's department. The dispatchers. The mechanics. The water department. The street pavers. The teachers. The janitors. The school bus drivers. The clerks. The guys who mow the lawn. The guys who fix the cars and trucks. The dog catcher. The guys who answer the phones. The maintenance men. There is plenty of money for EMS. They just don't think you're worth it. And whose fault is that?
chazmedic Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 Dustdevil wrote: Refusing to pay and not having the money are two completely different things. You can bet the county's lawyer's get paid. The sheriff's department. The dispatchers. The mechanics. The water department. The street pavers. The teachers. The janitors. The school bus drivers. The clerks. The guys who mow the lawn. The guys who fix the cars and trucks. The dog catcher. The guys who answer the phones. The maintenance men. There is plenty of money for EMS. They just don't think you're worth it. And whose fault is that? Nope, none, zip, nada. The hospital's closed. The ALS services have long bugged out for lack of funding. This county is like most in the area with a jail so big, most of it's vacate 'cause they can't afford the jailers.No water department, private company. Street pavers are private bids, teachers are by millage/property taxes collected by the state. Dog catcher is a sheriff deputy (ever seen a handcuffed dog?) Lawn mowers, car detailers, dispatchers, school bus drivers - all prisoners. Seriously folks, I just flew in and boy, are my arms tired. :wink: The people are thinking about a ambulance district tax to support the EMS. Remember, this isn't a urban area, but a rural area of around 15,000 to 30,000 people spread out over a couple of hundred square miles. Getting people to pay for the the service is the problem. But, the most they will be able to afford is a BLS system. Fortunately, there are two helicopter services within 10 minutes flight time for serious and critical calls. Arkansas is strange in that there is a large group of people that are totally against all taxes. They usually go after property taxes. They have tried to close schools, libraries, and public hospitals in the past. They actually filed a lawsuit to require 10 counties to sell off the non profit county hospitals and refund the money. Talking to these people is scary. They are the example of the 80/20 rule. 80 percent wants the remaining 20 percent to pay for it. To the 80 percent, the roads pave themselves. Bridges magically repair themselves.
Dustdevil Posted March 28, 2006 Posted March 28, 2006 LOL!! Excellent points, Chaz. I have definitely seen what you are talking about. It sucks. Politicians take advantage of the citizens so badly for so long that it all comes back in a backlash like you describe sooner or later. I understand how that works, and how it affects basic services and EMS. But again, that just illustrates my point that there IS money to pay for EMS. They simply don't think we are worth it and therefore won't pay it. I would not argue your very valid point that if they won't pay it, we can't get it. I am just saying that if we were valued and appreciated, there WOULD be money available for EMS. But because we are minimally trained idiots with less education than a barber or plumber, and because a significant percentage of our ranks are perfectly willing to "work" for free, we obviously are not valued. Consequently, communities refuse to fund us, even though they can very definitely afford to.
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