firepatrol

Being someone who will be directly effected by this proposed bill I have several questions that the language in the bill do not clarify. First, are we going to transport since they are in our care at the time of the draw, and should they have a medical emergency at the hands of law enforcement we are negligent since we did not perform a complete assessment and to avoid any liability we should transport. Secondly, who is going to pay for this? Are we going to bill the subject, or the agency who requested the procedure? Money is a huge component of any conversation these days and if they start pulling units out of service to perform these draws are the law enforcement agencies going to disperse portions of their budgets to EMS or Fire/EMS to hire additional personnel, and purchase additional equipment to already challenged areas that are already seeing problems in providing service due to increases in population and no increase in funding over the years. Thirdly, this bill seems written poorly with little research and planning. The bill leaves out the Licensed Paramedic as someone who is required to perform these draws, and as minute and ridiculous as this third point is, it does raise the question on how much research was done prior to this bill being submitted. I understand the social dilemma that DUI has become these days, but without effective punishment it is going to continue. I have responded and treated several persons who appeared to be DUI with a suspended license and multiple convictions. How is the thought of EMS performing these draws going to change the situation. If the representative wants to clearly impact the situation they should look at a corrections system that is overcrowded and overburdened, and a judical system that is collapsing under the weight of frivolous cases and proceedings that are taking years to see the light of a court room. I feel the spot light should be changed and start with prevention first and secondly look at repairing the judical and correction systems before mandating an additional liability and burden upon EMS.

I broke the O2 regulator on our vent yesterday. Things break, but the problem with EMS is it costs 5X as much to replace anything when you call it medical i.e. white duct tape at Home Depot 1.99. Medical tape to secure head cholks 5.99, but its the same thing.

phenergan is pretty good...beats mopping up puke in the back of the bus. I have found it to have more of a sedative effect then agalgesic, but when given with morphine it enhances the effects of the morphine. We are allowed to go up to 25mg per dose, I tend to stay w/ 12.5mg and adjust up as nescessary.