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Why is the fire department launching paramedic initiatives?
by orf 9y ago
Why is the fire department launching paramedic initiatives?
- qmarchi 9y agoMost paramedics are branches off of the local fire department.
- orf 9y agoThat seems like an odd delegation of responsibilities
- boomboomsubban 9y agoIt's that, be run by the police, or be a completely separate institution. Private healthcare makes hospitals in control a bad idea.
- Cerium 9y agoFireman are for protecting life, police for protecting law.
- orf 9y agoI'd say the fire service is more the protection of property, which overlaps into protecting life in some cases. It's odd to me to think of the fire service giving first response medical care, outside of perhaps smoke inhalation and burns.
- evgen 9y agoIn the US it is more likely that there is a fire department close to any particular residence (in fact they are usually spaced out to minimize response time over the entire area) while ambulances tend to be dispatched from hospitals or ambulance services and so their response time is more varied. Fire department paramedics and ambulances may both be dispatched for emergencies, but ambulances also cover things like non-emergency patient transfers and other medical transport scenarios. It is often the case that the role of the FD paramedic is to be first on scene and try to stabilize the patient if possible so that once the ambulance arrives they can scoop and go if needed.
- analog31 9y agoIn my locale, all of the firefighters are also trained as paramedics at some level. When I had my "old geezer chest pain" moment, the ambulance was on another call, so the fire truck showed up first. They had the full kit, including portable EKG, and started working on me right away. The entire system is based on counting the minutes from 911 call to treatment in the hospital, and treating it as a process to be optimized. I think statistically, you need more medics than firemen, so it may make sense to think of the fire station as a paramedic station that's also equipped to fight fires. My friend, the former EMT, told me that they like to have a crew of 4, for any call. The reason is that a large number of patients are obese, and it might take 4 crew to get someone out of their house. He said: "That's why you always see a fire truck following the ambulance."
- repiret 9y agoIf you want a reasonable response time from the fire department, then you end up with way more firefighters on duty at any given time than there are fires to respond to. Instead of paying them to twiddle their thumbs, most communities train them as paramedics and either have the fire department run an ambulance service or just use them as first responders who can get to a medical scene before an ambulance can.
- isostatic 9y agoMost communities? The only place I've heard of it is the US.
- repiret 9y agoAll right then, “most communities in the US.” I’ll admit I don’t really have any idea how it works anywhere else. However, I can only imagine that all developed countries have the “problem“ that modern building codes reduce the rate of fires such that they are faced with the choice between (1) reducing density of firefighters and therefore increasing their average response time (2) paying them to sit around and do nothing, or (3) giving them something else to do when there isn’t a fire.
- Spooky23 9y agoIts common in the US for basic life support to be delivered by private or hospital ambulances, or municipal EMS services by cheap EMTs. Sometimes they are just drivers. Usually advanced life support is done by paramedics or others who work for municipal EMS or fire departments. Bigger paid departments have a split between engine companies and rescue companies. Rescue companies have fancy tools for all sorts of situations and usually have more trained medical capability. That’s why you’ll see ladder trucks dispatched to medical emergencies in the US.
- germinalphrase 9y agoAdditionally, it seems that many rural communities have volunteer fire departments that will respond to local events (fire or medical) much more quickly than the more highly trained/equipped regional departments. Trained as EMTs, they provide immediate care until they can hand off to the full timers.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- anonymfus 9y agoBecause it happens in country without universal healthcare system? Edited: changed full stop to the question mark.
- notatoad 9y agoWorks the same here in Canada. Or did until a couple years ago anyways - people in my town still have the bumper stickers on their cars protesting the switch away from running the ambulance service out of the fire department.
- detaro 9y agoYeah, no. Countries with universal healthcare do this too (and why wouldn't they?)
- orf 9y agoCan you name some countries that do this?
- copenja 9y agoCanada
- orf 9y agoAside from Canada, which some commenters here say don't do this any more in some provinces, are there any others? Genuinely curious. Its a hard thing to Google for.
- icebraining 9y agoIts very common in Portugal, particularly outside the largest cities.
- rogerthis 9y agoBrazil.
- bannedaccount 9y agoIt's just taken as a given that the government will protect commercial property from fires, whereas having immediate medical care is seen as an extravagance. It would very profitable to start charging commercial properties for fire protection, the same way we charge for medical care, but that's just unacceptable for the businesses that are used to getting a free ride on the taxpayer's dime.
- maxander 9y agoAside from the other answers; because "being on-call 24/7 and having the ability to safely drive through town at high speed" is a capability just as important as paramedical training, for that role, and who else has it?
- dmckeon 9y agoIn the US, fire departments have far fewer fires to respond to, and many more medical calls, varying with the local situation - dual or single response by FD and EMS, transport by EMS xor FD, FD has paramedics (many hundreds of hours of training) or only EMTs (about 100 hours) or variations in between (varies by state).