Do you transport or not?

[RomeViking09]

My understanding from school is that the protocol says if you are asked by john doe to take him to ABC Medical Center that you must take him to ABC medical center unless it is too far away then you have to take him somewhere within your transport area. An EMT or Paramedic can not tell someone they are not going to take them. They can try to get them to refuse (and sometimes they will refuse after you tell them they are fine) but you can't tell them no. If you do it is patient abandonment. and in GA the DHR Rules and Statewide Protocols act as law so far as EMS goes.

[spenac]

My understanding from school is that the protocol says if you are asked by john doe to take him to ABC Medical Center that you must take him to ABC medical center unless it is too far away then you have to take him somewhere within your transport area. An EMT or Paramedic can not tell someone they are not going to take them. They can try to get them to refuse (and sometimes they will refuse after you tell them they are fine) but you can't tell them no. If you do it is patient abandonment. and in GA the DHR Rules and Statewide Protocols act as law so far as EMS goes.

I understand where you are coming from but that protocol you quoted does not say you can not deny transport to a non emergent patient. To me it only says that if they are going by ambulance to the hospital they can choose.

I work, now only part time, where we regularly deny transport and we also treat on scene and then deny transport. But most say that it is required to transport all callers. So far I have not seen in writing a law stating that. Even where I currently work full time we are told verbally we can not deny transport but there is not even anything in protocols that says that. I have found in many protocols and state rules/laws statements such as you posted that patient have right to when reasonable request a hospital, but have yet to find you must transport all callers or you may not deny transport even when there is nothing wrong if caller requests transport.

[CBEMT]

Are there actually state laws that say you must transport all callers even when they really do not need the ambulance? Proof please. I sure like telling patients no when they can safely go private car to ER or their own doctor.

Did we really need to dig up the year-old thread? :roll:

[spenac]

Did we really need to dig up the year-old thread? :roll:

If you have nothing productive to add please do not attack. I choose to revisit as no law was really ever shown as to transport every caller. You are welcome to not open my posts if you find them non productive. Thank you.

[spenac]

Since so many are upset that I suggest we decide in the field to deny transport I bring this back to life.

[spenac]

A recent scenario I did got some interesting responses, discussion and arguments, but really makes me want to see how things are done in different areas. Are all callers actually transported or was what went on in the other scenario the result of the distractions of the scenario. So this scenario will not have any misleading info to distract from the goal of seeing if transport by ambulance is always required. I will try my best not to go into a rant. Thank you for honestly answering the poll on this and for your responses.

Scenario: You are at your current station. You are dispatched by 911 (or other emergency number for your area) to a person that just said "send the ambulance" and hung up. It is 1 block from your station to caller. Upon arrival you find a clean healthy 30 year old person. Before you and your partner can exit the ambulance the person has already entered the box by the side door. You enter and ask what you can do to help and get this reply,

"You can hurry up and drive me to the hospital before the lunch special ends". Patient becomes agitated that you want vitals and tells you "Do not touch me just get me to the hospital before the lunch special ends". Only thing you know is ABC's and that the patient is alert and oriented as gives name, birthday, address, what day is it "it's discount hamburger day at the hospital", when asked complaint "I'm hungry", asked when complaint began "about half an hour ago", what makes it worse "you making me miss the lunch special, now get to driving".

What do you do based on your services policy, protocol, orders, etc.?

[spenac]

Brought back to life for new posters that have brought up denying.

[iMac]

Interesting thread. Because they called I would head out there but because of her request for ride for a meal it would be enough for me to call local law enforcement. I would evaluate from there. Could this be a psych call *cough*. Explain the purpose and usage of 911 probably call the sup. and leave.

[firedoc5]

I definately would not transport.

We had one hospital right next to a large mall. We'd occasionally get a call across town of someone with some odd complaint. We'd go ahead and transport. But as soon as we got the ER they would say that they felt OK now and would not go in. Instead they would start walking to the mall. One that really sticks in my mind is a gal that was yelling that she was choking on a piece of ham (true story). We knew it was a crock, but we took her anyway because of the family yelling at us too. And sure enough, as we were pulling in she said she just swallowed hard and it went down.

So when we had someone do that we reported them to the police for falsifying an EMS emergency. Those kind of calls stopped in a real hurry after about a dozen times.

[tamaith]

i don't do 911 unfortuntanly so i can't say. maybe call police. for backup and if the crew goes ahead and transports they have the address and name /birthday so BILL him for the ride which i know aren't cheap so that would be an expensive lunch.