tcemedic100's Blog

   Hello Fox 29, I have been an E.M.T. since 1986 and a Paramedic for more than 10 years and I have had the pleasure to work for PFD as a FSP. I am now working for a just as busy E.M.S system near Philadelphia. The best way some of my peers and I feel to fix the EMS response in Philadelphia is to utilize the private ambulances that are seen in and around the city to the 9-1-1 service. Contract them out. They could handle the basic or non-life threatening calls that come in to the dispatch system. New York city uses the hospital-based ambulances to lighten the call volume for NYEMS. Philadelphia Paramedics then could concentrate on the more serious calls that come in to the system.  The private ambulances are staffed with E.M.T.s and even some with Paramedics. The other systems that utilizes priority dispatch is taking a chance that something will not go wrong by delaying E.M.S response. The emergency medical dispatchers can ask the right questions and still not properly assess the patient without physically being there at the call.  They cannot take a pulse or blood pressure. Yes, the cotton in the ear and stub toe is the low priority calls and sounds like should not need an emergency ambulance, but I have been on a lot of calls were we get called for something that sounds minor and through a proper exam it turns out to be something serious and I have been the calls where I am taking a patient to the hospital for something minor as a tooth ache and in my coverage area there is a serious call that is delayed the E.M.S. response. Yes, there should be a campaign to the public on not calling 9-1-1 for non-emergencies, but the calls we go on are not our emergency its there emergency. This problem is not just with Philadelphia but most of the 9-1-1 busy systems.