Ambulance Vol Packing Up His Gear

[craig]

While i agree on your points about vollies

remeber that this guy has done 30 yrs or so as a basic and he is now retiring and moving to a state that doesn't have a volunteer service.

therefore he "wont take money for helping people"

ISN'T THAT WHAT WE WANT?

ONE LESS VOLLIE ON THE STREETS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PAID POSITION.

if the community sees that they need a paramedical service then it should be a paid one.

not to RELY on the goodwill of others

For gawds sake we supposed to live in first world countries.

stay safe

Craig

[Dustdevil]

If those caring souls in the community really want to aid their fellow man, they would be emptying trash cans for free, dishing out soup to the homeless for free, providing emotional support for victims of spousal abuse for free, running down to the local store for the elderly and infirm for free, shovelling snow for free....

Because snow plows, school buses, and trash trucks don't have sirens. :wink:

The article says he taught EMT courses. I'm wondering if he did those for free.

[ERDoc]

Thankfully, the jolly volly is a dying breed in the NYC area, and I am hopeful the trend will spread East to Montauk, at least within my lifetime. :roll:

That's not going to happen until Suozzi or Levy lose a loved one who had to wait for the volleys to show up.

[menla]

Ok, I've read the arguments against volunteers, and really just don't get it. I work unpaid shifts at a paid EMS / volunteer fire station. The only reason I don't want the money is so they can spend it on things like supplies, or whatever. I'm trained just the same as the other medics, got my NREMT and state licenses like everybody else did. I have more experience than some EMTs, much less than others.

This is a service that has come close to shutting down for lack of funds many times over the years. And it's also a place about 30 to 45 minutes from a hospital. Yes, there's EMSA, but why add another 30 to 45 minutes to the response time? We're talking Osage County, Oklahoma here. Very rural, very sparsely populated, and not very much money.

Yes, I understand that we need better funding mechanisms. I just don't see how helping to keep the ambulance in service while waiting for it to work out is going to affect that process. This area has been without ambulance service before, and the community got together and started the ambulance service after people died. Closing the doors just means that will happen again - not that there will be some immediate public outcry of support for changing the laws.

To me "whackers" are the guys who jump in their POVs with flashy lights and show up having no clue what to do but getting off on taking charge any way. Or is this just complaining about pay in EMS in general? I can agreee with that, and I think we should work toward making that happen.

Congratulations, by the way, to EMSA. I hear they got a 12.5% pay increase.

[spenac]

I nominate that as the stupidest comment of the current decade.

Fine you want to volunteer. I disagree with that choice. But you say you want to help people why not accept a check and donate the money if you really don't want it. This helps many people. First the patients you treat. Then the many that benefit from the charity you support. If you made $1000 a month and donated it all you could feed more than 33 kids a month based on one charitys ads. Wow you could really put your money where your mouth is and prove you actually do what you do because you love to help people.

Maybe this is what all volleys should do. At least then them giving away their paychecks would not affect my paycheck the way giving services away for free does.

Just brought that point back up as it beats the hell out of rearguing.

Another question I have about this is how do you retire if you were never hired? This is kind of like preachers that retire, does that mean they quit serving God?

[menla]

Ok. So the argument really is rather idealistic then. The same argument means we shouldn't have volunteer anything, including fire. It'd be great if the government would pay for that, and healthcare too (while we're at it). Hmmm... and broadband internet. :-)

I guess I just see it otherwise, EMS services are dropping here like flies. Lots of the smaller agencies wouldn't survive without volunteers. For example, there are still some counties that are ALL volunteer, or so I'm told.

So perhaps the argument against vollies is something else entirely. The usual one I hear is lack of professionalism, and I'm not sure one has to be a volunteer to be unprofessional. But I'll admit that I've noticed less enthusiasm for uniforms in the volly world. But, oddly, not for taking classes. That's just me, though.

So to address the original complaint head-on, the answer to funding probably lies in state legislative branches. Rather than complaining about vollies, a better tactic is to encourage EMS professionals to write letters to their lawmakers. Each lawmaker has a threshold for a topic to be brought to his or her attention. Usually three to five letters are all that are required for a lawmaker to take notice.

I've seen knitting circles change the world just because they each took the time to write a letter. We can do that to, if we bother to. Make a website, publish nice pamphlets that coach people through writing personalized letters to their lawmakers. It's worked before.

Cheers,

Tom White

[spenac]

Ok. So the argument really is rather idealistic then. The same argument means we shouldn't have volunteer anything, including fire. It'd be great if the government would pay for that, and healthcare too (while we're at it). Hmmm... and broadband internet. :-)

I guess I just see it otherwise, EMS services are dropping here like flies. Lots of the smaller agencies wouldn't survive without volunteers. For example, there are still some counties that are ALL volunteer, or so I'm told.

Tom White

The biggest gripe most have with vollys is that they take money away from our familys. Speaking from experience when I go in asking for money they say why don't we do it free like the county up the road. There is no excuse for a county, city, etc to be volly. ( check out this discussion

http://www.emtcity.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.ph...ghlight=convert )

I live in and work in one of the poorest areas in the USA yet we are paid, not great but not bad either. If the other countys went paid our pay would go up. If its great for us to work free then I suggest you go work the sewer plant for free, go pick up the trash for free, go do all other services free. There is money just need vollys to push their communitys to go paid.

[menla]

The biggest gripe most have with vollys is that they take money away from our familys. Speaking from experience when I go in asking for money they say why don't we do it free like the county up the road. There is no excuse for a county, city, etc to be volly.

I can agree that communities need to be pushed to give the money. There are some interesting new funding mechanisms, like utility bill subscriptions, that help. But one could argue that those also hinder (a town of 300 can't support EMS for a county, but now they aren't going to vote for a tax millage either). Pretending it isn't complex, to me, is far more harmful than volunteering as an EMT.

Attitudes toward healthcare expenses are just plain weird right now. Everybody expects an ambulance at the door a few minutes after they call 911, but I'm not sure they understand what it is that they need to do to ensure that it will happen.

There's no excuse for ignorance, but it's inevitable. Joe Bob and his three dogs in a trailer probably have no clue that there's a way to get funding for EMS. And to be honest, he's been lied to so much about taxes by politicians, that he'd probably vote against it anyway.

( check out this discussion

http://www.emtcity.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.ph...ghlight=convert )

I live in and work in one of the poorest areas in the USA yet we are paid, not great but not bad either. If the other countys went paid our pay would go up. If its great for us to work free then I suggest you go work the sewer plant for free, go pick up the trash for free, go do all other services free. There is money just need vollys to push their communitys to go paid.

The pay for EMS is one of the many atrocities in our society. We can disagree on the causes, but I agree with you 100% that that is bad.

There will always be volunteers in the medical field, that's just a fact of life. That's because there's more that appeals than the money. If I recall correctly, the profession of nursing began as a volunteer service.

In Oklahoma, some of the poorest counties have full-time EMS staff, others don't. Yes - if people knew that fact maybe they could do something about it. And so awareness is very much the key to resolving the problem.

But I don't agree with the method. You're saying that not having EMS to work that wreck with four teenagers in it will raise awareness so that maybe something will be done. I'm saying that we should still get those kids to a hospital, but look into other ways to raise awareness of the problem.

Tom White