10-07-2021, 01:16 PM
(10-06-2021, 03:00 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Additionally, as someone else pointed out, I don’t think the capacity problem for Fire is actual fires; they do a lot of medical calls. But how can it make sense to send a fire truck for a medical call rather than an ambulance? It’s a bigger vehicle with more people. Of course it makes sense for Fire to be able to step in when EMS happens to be busy, but in terms of capacity planning, Fire should be planned only for fire, while EMS should be planned to cover medical calls. This is easier if both are managed by the same government, in this case the Regional government.
Fire is pushing hard to do more medical calls than they do already. They are trying to justify their positions, as true fire calls are shrinking. Tiered response is seen as a way of keeping them busy. Again, this is why EMS have issues with the shared responsibility. Paramedics get paid crap (compared to Fire), and the Hero's in the red truck are trying to replace them.
If they were moved to a Regional system, I could see cutbacks as we don't need to "double up" the medical response (Or the paramedics are part of the fire service like in most US counties -- at least the ones that aren't privatized there).
I am in agreement that they should be regional, not city run.... but there are a lot of (non-frontline) staff [and unions] that would fight hard against this.
Coke