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Spotsylvania County's Fire and Rescue Commission reports that more volunteers trained in advanced life support are needed, but no plan is in effect to meet those needs Date published: 12/6/2009
By DAN TELVOCK On nights, weekends and holidays, Spotsylvania County has enough volunteers to staff three of nine ambulances with responders trained to handle the most serious medical calls. A Nov. 16 Spotsylvania County Fire and Emergency Medical Services Commission memo to the Board of Supervisors states that until more volunteers are certified with advanced life-support training, the volunteers will continue using a backup medic in a response vehicle to handle most serious medical calls. That medic can be responsible for answering ALS calls in a very large area, the memo states. A review of the county budget shows it could cost as much as $3.1 million--a third of the paid fire and rescue system's $9.3 million budget--to hire and train enough rescue workers to make sure every ambulance is capable of providing advanced life support around the clock. The county has 133 paid emergency services employees, according to the budget, and more than 300 others who serve with Spotsylvania Volunteer Fire, Spotsylvania Volunteer Rescue and Chancellor Volunteer Fire and Rescue. Spotsylvania Fire and Rescue Chief Chris Eudailey says having more ALS coverage is his preference. But other rescue officials say having someone trained on each ambulance is uncommon and unnecessary when fewer than 30 percent of medical calls require such a response. Many volunteers are trained in basic life support and can perform CPR and administer oxygen and glucose. Advanced life-support training allows a rescue worker to administer life-saving drugs and procedures to patients. An ALS-certified medic is especially important for patients with serious brain and heart conditions. The memo states that paid career staff have an ambulance at every station in the county with at least one responder trained in advanced life support during weekdays from 4:40 a.m. to 6 p.m. Getting more ALS coverage would require hiring more paid personnel and helping the volunteer system with recruiting and training. "It is going to get down to a point that someone is going to have some real dialogue with the Board of Supervisors to determine what level of service they want," Eudailey said.
Hey Tired.Nothing was said about it being a requirement from the state or feds requiring ALS units to be staffed.Thecountynty BOS states that during paids hours all units staffed will be at the ALS level and is current practice. But what happens after 6pm and on weekends is still unacceptable and susequently poses a liability danger to the county and it's citizens for failure to provide around the clock CONSISTANT fire and EMS coverage.CONSISTANCY being the key word here.Nobody says the vols do a bad job...
You're correct that the state regs are general, and the needs very greatly between counties. However, contrary to what AWAT would like people to believe, there is NO legal or regulatory "requirement" to staff every unit at the ALS level. Not at the federal level, state level, regional level, or county level. A decision was made for all the paid units to be ALS, but that was all it was. A decision. not a requirement.
Dont be mislead by the rules and regulation of the State! These are written with a view state wide, from Arlington to Wise County in SW Va. The state cant mandate rules to the extent that it is usable for every one. A county of 100K has diffrent needs than a county of 5K people.Larryg has the idea!
In an effort to answer some of the questions regarding "standards" that have been posed here by non Fire/EMS folks today, here is a link to the Rules and Regulations for ambulance operations declared by VAOEMS (our governing body). Hope it helps clarify. http://169.134.226.36/Rules&Re.nsf/
then you need to show the data - especially compared to
peer counties.
people are reasonable. They know that this county cannot
afford top tier service but they need to know the differences
in terms of what level of service costs how much - a range.
this is not up to the fire/rescue folks to determine. It's their
job to provide the data - show where we are - and how
much it will cost to improve - and then let citizens and
voters decide. There is way too much inside baseball going
on here IMHO.
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