Emergency Services Mortality?

[Timmy]

I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, rude or ill-informed but I really can’t get my head around this, what’s the go with the high mortality rate within the American emergency services?

It seems every time I log on there’s a new post informing me that an ambo crashed a truck, a helicopter crashed into another, firefighters died in a fire, first responders crashing even before they make the scene and the list grows longer…

I just can’t seem to work out why this is happening? Lack of training? Not thinking straight? No sense of danger? I just can’t work it out… I mean Australia certainly has emergency services related fatality or server morbidity events but it seems nothing compared to the US, it’s certainly not a daily/weekly event and we certainly don’t have a website dedicated to recorded the death of Emergency services workers.

In fact the last article I can find relating to an emergency vehicle accident was a few months ago.

I keep hearing silly like story’s about firefighters going into fully involved buildings for internal attack when there’s no conformation re entrapment only to have the roof come down on them or ambos driving at incredible speed to get to a call or members responding in POV to calls yet there vehicles haven’t undertaken a road worthy to drive at high speed.

It all just seems mind blowing and I really can’t figure out why it’s happening.

[akflightmedic]

Good post Timmy.

I will work on a constructive response when I have time.

In the meantime, what is the population of Australia vs America?

What is the number of AUS emergency providers vs USA providers?

Same figures for firefighters?

How many ambos in Aus vs USA?

Any idea of call volume in both countries?

[Timmy]

I did think about the figures as I know America would be up on Australia but it still struck me as a high number of incidences.

[sevenball]

I may be out of my league here, but I'll shoot off anyway. I don't claim to know much about australia, but here is what I do know to hold true.

Australia has universal health care. So, regardless of you socio-econimical classification, you will recieve the same care as the president of your country (in theory). In America, there are millions of people out here that do not have health insurance, or any access to health care at all. We pack our poor into low income housing projects, shut off their heat and electricity at the first sight of financial trouble, and restrict their outside grilling to within 50 yards of their building. Unfortunately, that 50 yards is the street corner in which the crack dealer has set up his business, so thier options are limited.

Why am I saying all of this. Simple. If you have no healthcare, you do not take care of yourself at all, no follow up care and no simple physicals for prevention. That leads to higher incidences of ambulance usage. Higher usage equals higher incidents of accidents and fatalities.

If we shut their power off and their gas off, they cannot cook on their stoves, they use grills, indoors in many cases. Your just asking for trouble there. And since their domicile is run by a slum lord, their smoke alarms don't work, and there aren't any sprinklers to douse the flames. Harder times, higher the drug rates. More drugs equals more carelessness.

It's all simple cause and effect, but that is simply my own opinion on the matter. I could be completely off base here and it may boil down to something as simple as statistics and population density.

[dougd]

I may be out of my league here, but I'll shoot off anyway. I don't claim to know much about australia, but here is what I do know to hold true.

Time for a quick reality check for you:

Lack of Universal Healthcare != More helicopter midair collisions or controlled flight into terrain

Lack of Universal Healthcare != Joe EMT crashing his POV while running hot to the station.

Lack of Universal Healthcare != More paramedics blowing an intersection, swerving around an animal in the road at a high rate of speed, or some other type of mistake that leads to loss of control of the vehicle.

[sevenball]

Dougd,

If your post was meant to prove any type of point, I fail to see it. If your intentions were to give me some dose of reality, then you need to make some form of an argument. Was your post in favor of my discussion, or against it, it's pretty vague.

The point that I was trying to get across was that if you have poor healthcare, then you tend to use emergency services more often. If you use services more often, then you increase the potential for tragedy by whatever percentage of usage that you have. Those folks in Australia don't need to worry about healthcare because it's all the same. Therefore, you can get regular preventative care, thus reducing the need for emergency services, decreasing the potential for tragedy.

[Eydawn]

I think the issue is that not having universal healthcare is not the definitive cause of increased EMS mortality. It may be a definite contributing factor... but to say it causes it is unsupportable.

Now, attributing increased EMS mortality to poor education, trauma shock-jock culture and unfortunate flying or driving incidents... you have an argument for that. The fact that the system that has these inherent problems in it is being taxed and its use increased by those without healthcare is a contributing factor... but you can teach people who run a high volume of calls to do so safely and decrease (not eliminate!) these kind of deadly accidents/incidents.

Wendy

CO EMT-B

[Just Plain Ruff]

Why am I saying all of this. Simple. If you have no healthcare, you do not take care of yourself at all, no follow up care and no simple physicals for prevention. That leads to higher incidences of ambulance usage. Higher usage equals higher incidents of accidents and fatalities.

quote by sevenball

You are way off on that one. I have been without healthcare, in fact I was without healthcare for 1 year due to financial restraints.

I take extreme exception that you are lumping me into that demographic. I ran 2 miles a day, I ate well(as well as I can - yes you can eat a salad from McDonalds just no dressing) and I actually paid for my doctor visits.

I was in better health when I had no insurance than I am now. Coincidence - not sure.

You make a blanket statement like that and someone's gonna call you on it. Sure in general those without healthcare may not take care of themselves (broad generalization) but I did the opposite as well as the other 15 people who I worked with who also had no healthcare.

If you think that having universal healthcare is the end all be all of this country's healthcare problem then you are sorely mistaken.

Just go google Massachussetts, universal healthcare and you will see all the links of the problems with their universal healthcare.

Please don't make Assumptions like this - it only makes you look silly.

[paramedicmike]

This thread isn't about universal health care. This thread is about mortality rates in US EMS services and how that may compare to Australia (Timmy's neighborhood) or elsewhere.

Can we keep it on those lines please? If you want to discuss universal health care, something I don't think americans are qualified to discuss, please consider starting another thread.

Sorry, Admin. Had to try and keep it on track.

-be safe

[VentMedic]

I gotta agree with Ruffems. There are many "middle class" people in the U.S. without healthcare. Some are small business owners or in some type of self employed situations. Others work for very small shops or companies that also can not afford insurance for their employees. And, there are many healthcare workers without insurance because they are inbetween jobs or don't get enough hours to be benefited. Yes, even in health care times can be rough in some areas with hospitals closing or consolidating.

That is why healthcare in the U.S. is such a controversial and far reaching topic. It does not affect just one social or economic sector.

Whether I have insurance or not should not influence the way you drive an ambulance. Look at some of the factors involved in the deadly ambulance collisions.

paramedicmike,

Since lack of healthcare was being directly linked to "EMS mortality" the counter arguments were mentioned that not everyone is a stereotype.