Rural County EMS System--Scares me

[SSG G-man]

Spenac:

Thanks! The intent of my original post was to point out how scared I was for my relatives. When I lived there I was a teenager and never thought of the stuff. Plus, My parents and I lived in the county seat and were minutes from the hospital. My sister lives in one of the outlying areas and during a visit just prior to the post I found out what there system was like.

Where I live now, most of the rural Volunteer departments are combination fire/EMS. Not there! They have volunteer FDs, but the EMS is county run. There are first responders throughout the county that will show up in their POVs with some gear, but a transport unit is a LONG way off. (not sure if the first responders are allowed lights and sirens on their POVS, so I do not know how "whackerish" they are.

My original post had nothing to do with commenting on the abilities of any of the providers.

[Chief1C]

Oh, Rural EMS is scary.. for us, anyway. I don't know about the citizens, compared to local paid services, we do pretty damn good. Now, onto scary, We go out to places that don't have plumbing, running water, electricity, telephone, an address.. and this isn't Amish country... Things that you'd expect to see in a rural area during the 1930's. But certainly not 2007.. and not when you're looking for them at 3am. Someone put very clear, it's creepy, freaks me out a little. I don't know for sure that these simple folks would ever hurt us, but some horror flicks involving extreme rural citizens come to mind. Wrong Turn, etc. :?

Just up the highway, a volunteer service (Town A) was running their asses off, and decided to hang it up. Everyone had quit, and they were down to only two people. They were bought out by a full time agency, that promised, publicly to give the same service as the previous service had for better than 60 years. Except, their ambulance would be staffed with an EMT and a Paramedic. At the same time, three other services (Towns BCD) said, well, if the community will get the same as we are giving, and they will hire some of our EMT's, we'll sell too.

Heh. The paid service mainly does Non-E transports, but had five ALS units. Now to the first town.. When the paid service, hospital based gets a call near their base, the ambulance station in Town A, leaves and heads for home. Town A now has no ambulance, or EMS service available, and their new ambulance is about 23 minutes away. The FD does NOT do EMS, they make that blatantly clear. At night, Town A has no ambulance. At least 50% of the time, if not more, Town A has no ambulance during the Day. They've put a second ambulance in Town A, to be staffed by off-duty, but paid per call, EMT's that work for the service. This is never in service nor out of service, just available some evenings. Most of the time, the ambulance they get is staffed by two EMT's, not a paramedic.

Towns BCD realize how the citizens have been short changed by the service, and back out of their agreements. It seems the paid service has trouble getting units out, after only two of the five are on the road. Towns BCD sees this as a major concern, not only would they lack EMS response, their contract ALS service isn't able to get out for them.

In the end, the people in Town A wait longer and get less than they bargained for.

[akroeze]

The men and women in our EMS system are among the best trained clinicians in America.

Quoted for comedic value

[Dustdevil]

Quoted for comedic value

[spenac]

Now quit picking on that. They may be the best "trained", in other words better at skills than anybody else, they just are not educated as to why or when they need to do those skills.

[captainstandup]

Don't lower yourself spenac, you have demonstrated an unusual acumen for spirited discussion and it's been fun joining in. Why would you resort to unspenac behavior? I was trying to articulate the knowledge base of our personnel when I said they were among the best trained in America. Of the 40 plus employees we have one Phd, seven master's degrees, six bachelor's in EMS and nine associate's degrees. 73% are NREMTP eight are CCEMTP. There are six state certified paramedic instructors. These folks enjoy very broad protocols and aren't required to contact medical control for anything except to notify them of ETA and in circumstances where specialty care may be required. These guys and girls have worked really hard to accomplish the level of expertise they possess. Childish silliness is beneath you. Oh and by the way akroeze what the hell would a Registered Practical Nurse from Canada know about training in America anyway?

[spenac]

Don't lower yourself spenac, you have demonstrated an unusual acumen for spirited discussion and it's been fun joining in. Why would you resort to unspenac behavior? I was trying to articulate the knowledge base of our personnel when I said they were among the best trained in America. Of the 40 plus employees we have one Phd, seven master's degrees, six bachelor's in EMS and nine associate's degrees. 73% are NREMTP eight are CCEMTP. There are six state certified paramedic instructors. These folks enjoy very broad protocols and aren't required to contact medical control for anything except to notify them of ETA and in circumstances where specialty care may be required. These guys and girls have worked really hard to accomplish the level of expertise they possess. Childish silliness is beneath you. Oh and by the way akroeze what the hell would a Registered Practical Nurse from Canada know about training in America anyway?

Thank you for the kind of a compliment. You have missed the point, I forget that you are still new to site. Training vs education has been discussed here many times. I am glad you have a group that actually sounds to be educated rather than just trained. The protocols here are very expanded and no medical control calls. Another quick point you will always lose points on this site by using NR to back anything.

Sorry about that. I must keep in mind if I have to explain the jokes it is not funny.

[captainstandup]

I really need to figure out the etiquette of EMT City. By the way I have e-mailed everyone I know about this site. I am embarrassed that I didn't know of its existence until just a couple weeks ago.

[Dustdevil]

Oh and by the way akroeze what the hell would a Registered Practical Nurse from Canada know about training in America anyway?

Not that he needs me to speak for him, but I'll tell you what he knows. He knows that the time it took him to become an RPN is four times more than what it took for most medics in the U.S. to finish medic school. He knows that the education he has from PCP school in Ontario by itself is more than ninety percent of all paramedics in the U.S. will ever achieve. He knows that his combined RPN and ACP education adds up to about three more years than the vast majority of all CCEMTPs and RNs in this country ever achieve. And he knows that just about every U.S. medic that tries to take his mad skillz north of the border gets laughed out on his fat, uneducated arse.

How dare you impugn his knowledge. :wink:

[Dustdevil]

Another quick point you will always lose points on this site by using NR to back anything.

And don't forget the CCEMTP. We've had some pretty painful belly laughts over that one too!