EMS Rights

Several articles have been posted lately across the United States about EMS organizations demanding that judge's and police organizations hold accountable those people in the public who assault paramedics.  I have no argument with any of these organizations or what they are trying to do, but I would add the caveat that we (a) do have laws against assault, and (b) we signed up for a profession where we don't see people at their best.

Having said that and having worked in a career where on more than one occassion I have worked the ominous forty-eight hour shift consecutively due to overtime, I am appaled by West Midlands Ambulance Service's recent statement on the death of an infant after a delay in EMS response of 41 minutes.  Their statement that their EMS crew having a right to a break misses the point.  A short article on the topic indicates the child went into cardiac arrest shortly after arriving at the hospital - a potentially preventable occurrence in my mind - when you bring into play your physician and nurse partners into the care of the patient.

The "what me worry?" attitude of the NHS's West Midlands Ambulance is scary when you consider this is the same health "service" which is placing hundreds of patients, including infants and children, on a death pathway.  This is not health service at all, but a bureaucratic plan to make life easier for the provider.  It is even scarier for me when I think that this is the same healthcare plan that President Obama wants here in the United States where care is rationed and your end of life becomes an issue not of morality, but of money.

I understand that we all get hungry, we all get tired working the long shifts on the box, but the bottom line is when the bell rings, you go.  I know that in a single shift I worked we had an unconscious inmate who required intubation and aggressive treatment for hyperthermia of unknown origin, followed by a head on MVC which resulted in double traumatic cardiac arrests - my patient ultimately had ROSC secondary to our NEBR resuscitation method and pericardial centesis, and then we had a cardiac arrest following that - all before we were fully restocked on our rig.  Three consecutive patients in a four and a half hour window.  During that time my EMT partner and I had three patients plus managed the accident scene from a MCI perspective until fire arrived.  We ended up with three tubes, two ROSCs out of two cardiac arrests, and an empty stomach.  We had been on calls all day and the accident wasn't even our call, but due to our proximity versus the dispatched unit, we went.  We didn't have a responsibility to go, but we had a moral code to go.

The crew from West Midlands seems to believe that a meal is more important than the next life you can save.  It is scary on more than one level to think that these are emergency responders.  Day one of EMT school I was told have a pen, penlight, stethoscope, and a snack because you know you need the first three for documentation and assessment and you never know when you might need the last one.  West Midlands step up or step off the dance floor.