Dear Editor:
Re: Firefighters Sound the 9-1-1 Alarm.
A couple of weeks ago, a man on a scooter stopped to let a fire truck with emergency lights and sirens go by and was hit from behind by a driver of a car who wasn't expecting the stop. The man on the scooter was injured and taken to hospital by ambulance. Obviously the fire was not to blame, but this does highlight the whole point of the RAP (Resource Allocation Plan) program that paramedics are committed to upholding.
Emergency vehicles driving with lights and sirens get into accidents and, like the man on the scooter, cause other accidents to happen. And this is exactly why emergency responses should be reserved for emergencies only. People might be surprised to learn that the overwhelming majority of emergency lights and siren calls that firefighters and ambulances go to are actually discovered to be non emergencies. Many so minor in fact that often times there is no transport required. This is a good thing, of course, and is a testimony to how careful our ambulance dispatchers really are.
The article Firefighters Sound 9-1-1 Alarm is misleading. Implied is the absurd idea that ambulance dispatchers, suspecting a person is having an aneurysm, would send an ambulance routine without lights and sirens. This is completely false and shows a real lack of understanding as to how paramedics are dispatched.
Titles, such as "suspected aneurysm, miscarriage, or fall resulting in hemorrhage," in dispatcher language, are simply the names of categories that have little or no real connection to the nature of the call. In other words, there is almost nothing we can tell about the patient or what the call is about from the category name attached to the call. And if an ambulance is sent routine to a "suspected aneurysm" the one thing you can be certain of is that it's not a suspected aneurysm. The real information comes in follow up as the dispatcher spends time talking with the patient or the person caring for the patient. The answers that come back to the dispatcher from lengthy questioning give paramedics a sense of what the call is really about.
Jackie Strom's broken arm had a 20-minute response time and that's unfortunate. But it leads to some interesting questions. What is an acceptable response time for a call such as that? Would 15 minutes suffice? How about a half hour? I think you'd have favourable responses to both, and I doubt there would be a lot of consensus. And how long do people with a similar injury typically have to wait in the hall at the hospital before seeing a physician? The RAP program is here to stay. It's had input from physicians of all specialties as well as paramedics, and came about as a result of complaints by both paramedics and patients who were displeased with the over-response problem. If firefighter Brian Leavold would like to make changes then he should make his case to the medical community directly, and stop trying to do an end run by appealing to those who don't understand the system. And if the medical community disagrees with you, Brian Leavold, then you have failed to make your case. Try again.
Randy K. Block
North Vancouver paramedic
