http://rescuingprovidence.com/2006/11/03/dignity/
I thought about the lady in the post above when I first read the story below.
http://lifeunderthelights.com/2010/09/a-weighted-issue-the-fire-service-helping-private-ems/
I read the headline about the fire department refusing to assist the private ambulance company a week or so ago and couldn’t quite figure out why. Then I forgot about it until I visited Life Under The Lights a little while ago.
I’ve been a firefighter/EMT for nearly twenty years. Situations like this seldom come up. It happens, but not all that often.
As Rodney King said years ago, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Get the lady where she needs to go, then figure it out. For god’s sake, man this isn’t that difficult. We help people, that’s what we do.
My mother spent the last ten years of her life in a nursing home. On holidays and when we could, we would pick her up and take her out. We literally had to “pick her up.” She wasn’t light. I could do it, but it wasn’t easy. A lot of the events at the time happened at my grandmother’s house, that just so happened to be across the street from a fire station. (not Providence)
If me or my brother were not available, which happened a lot due to our occupations the nursing home staff would help get her into the car of whoever went to get her, usually one of her sisters who physically wouldn’t be able to do it on her own. I figured the firefighters wouldn’t mind helping a brother out. They didn’t, once. The next time, six months later, with my mother sitting in my aunts car, they refused, said call a private ambulance company, it wasn’t their job.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
* wish we had one of those ramps!
I keep thinking about a very similar situation (almost exact) I had in the fine City of Providence. We were extremely happy and grateful to have the assistance of Engine 3 and Ladder 1. We had extra resources from the company, but we didn’t have enough extra resources working that day to get the patient up the 7 stairs from sidewalk to apartment that we didn’t know about until we got there.
It was very gratifying to see that in state where private services are, generally speaking, treated like something stuck to the bottom of one’s shoe, we (and the patient!) could still get professional assistance no questions asked.
Somehow, through all of our problems we (the PFD) still manage to get things done. Like I said, it doesn’t happen all that often, it’s not like the private services plan on making money on the back of the fire department.
You have to take care of the patient first.
We get the same BS sometimes, and we are a subsection of the FD. I just try to tell people I didn’t make the rule that FD responds ( they used to end another ambulance), I just play by it like everyone else. Sometimes we lose sight of the patient coming first.
A long time ago, I worked in Los Angeles for a private ambulance company. We were called to transport a woman from her home, and found a 500-pound plus patient who had not been out of her easy chair for a very long time… a veeeerrrry long time. We had no way of moving her, nor any way of transporting her. We did the best thing we could- we called the Los Angeles Fire Department’s nearest truck company for help. They came out with an engine and a truck, and helped us get the patient onto our gurney and into the ambulance. They did it all without bitching, without whining that it “wasn’t their job”, without griping that we “privates” should have handled it ourselves.
We took the patient to the hospital, and afterwards brought the Fire guys a couple dozen donuts. It wasn’t much, but it said everything it needed to. We appreciated their help.
I just left a department that didn’t get along with the volunteer towns that surrounded us. Why? No idea, but I suspect ego has a very big part of it. That’s very likely a big part of what’s going on in other parts of the country… people need to get over themselves and the image of ‘professional vs. private’.
Keep up the great writing!
Jared, I like that story. It is exactly what I mean about the patient coming first.
What drew my ire on this story (and I posted on it today without knowing about the hornets nest in here) was the air of entitlement bellowed out by the owner of a private company to demand the taxpayers bail his ass out for not being able to complete the job he got paid for. By the taxpayers.
God bless America.
If it helps, John, I’d be surprised if what he got paid for that trip covered the diesel it took to get it done. It sure as hell didn’t cover the fuel plus two employees for 8+ hours.
Thanks for reading, Jarad, Patrick and John. Like I mentioned earlier, these calls don’t happen all that often. If it becomes routine other arrangements should be made. If not, no biggie.(pun intended)