The poor volunteers...

[Mountain Res-Q]

Back to the issue at hand, being a volunteer should never be used as an excuse not to conduct yourself professionally or be adaquately trained to do your job. If the training requirements are made to be unreasonably difficult to meet, that is a different issue all together.

Why is it that we divide this up into these 2 catagories:

VOLUNTEER (sneer) vs. PROFESSIONAL

The catagories actually go like this:

PROFESSIONAL VOLUNTEERS & PAID PROFESSIONALS vs. NON-PROFESSIONALS. Just because you are a volunteer doesn't mean that you don't have the same dedication and commitment to the art/craft/field as those that are paid. If peoples attacks are against the folks in emergency services that are not professional, than I say look aound and start singling out those that are Paid Un-Professionals in our field first. They get paid for what they do and still don't take it seriously (I know many more of those in my neck of the woods thenthe rare volunteer un-professionals). If it is a matter of raiseing the standards that volunteers must meet in order to be in the field, then fine, no argument that all (paid included) should have the standards raised to be taken seriously by the community and to provide above-adequate care to our patients and the community we serve; but a blacketed bash against volunteers only helps to divide an already divided field of emergency services.

 

[daedalus]

Luckily the members of the 75% of all fire depts in the country that are volunteer do not share that same view. Not volunteering for anything? Seems a little selfish.



Anybody can dump a bucket of water on a campfire, but to be a good firefighter I would put the required training on the same level as EMS.

I'm doing my Firefighter I/II course now, and its very much like the EMT-B. Around 150 hours of training, written and practical exams at the end. There are actually two practicals, one with live fire and one non-fire.

What most people don't realize (myself included until recently) is that firefighting is not simple at all. If not done properly, many things at a fire can hurt or kill you. For instance, enter a burning room and spray water in the wrong way and you can upset the thermal balance and cook yourself. Medics do drug calculations, pump operators do pressure and flow calculations to supply their different lines and nozzles appropriately.


Back to the issue at hand, being a volunteer should never be used as an excuse not to conduct yourself professionally or be adaquately trained to do your job. If the training requirements are made to be unreasonably difficult to meet, that is a different issue all together.

You could really save your state some money if you volunteer to do IFTs. BTW, I find it very easy to be a professional who demands pay for his work, and also a volunteer who uses his knowledge to help those who cannot get help. Once a week i volunteer my services at a county Free Clinic. I still expect pay for my work as an EMT, and soon, as a Paramedic.

 

[Kookaburra]

Just chiming in as another person who lives in an area where there would be no fire protection if it weren't for volunteers. It's a very poor rural community - you could raise taxes 50% and it wouldn't make a difference in funding, because most don't make enough to pay taxes. We don't transport, but I'm going through the academy right now - I'm amazed at all of the stuff to remember! My college chemistry classes are certainly coming in handy!

However, I agree that volunteers should be just as professional as paid - in my own department, I'm always frustrated by the people who show up in greasy Carhartts and John Deere baseball caps to medical calls. If there was more training offered, especially on the professional fire fighter level, I would jump at it, and I know quite a few others who would too.

 

[daedalus]

Just chiming in as another person who lives in an area where there would be no fire protection if it weren't for volunteers. It's a very poor rural community - you could raise taxes 50% and it wouldn't make a difference in funding, because most don't make enough to pay taxes. We don't transport, but I'm going through the academy right now - I'm amazed at all of the stuff to remember! My college chemistry classes are certainly coming in handy!

However, I agree that volunteers should be just as professional as paid - in my own department, I'm always frustrated by the people who show up in greasy Carhartts and John Deere baseball caps to medical calls. If there was more training offered, especially on the professional fire fighter level, I would jump at it, and I know quite a few others who would too.

Providing medical care is a tremendous responsibility. Doctors spend six years in full time school before they even touch a patient (4 years undergrad, 2 preclinical medical science years). They put in a incredible amount of work before they can even start patient care, and even than they are students who make very little decisions. How disrespectful to the profession of medicine to arrive to a call in a beat up 86 honda with a oversized lightbar zip tied to the roof, in shorts and a sweat stained t shirt.

 

[Kookaburra]

Honestly, I'm not even sure why our department does medical calls- they only account for 60% of our call volume, and there are other services that cover the area medically.

Oh, and I should add - our ISO rating is equal to the nearby metro areas with professional fire departments. My dept. does Fire/Rescue great - I think it should concentrate on that.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

Just chiming in as another person who lives in an area where there would be no fire protection if it weren't for volunteers. It's a very poor rural community - you could raise taxes 50% and it wouldn't make a difference in funding, because most don't make enough to pay taxes.

Pretty much the same here where I am.

However, I agree that volunteers should be just as professional as paid - in my own department, I'm always frustrated by the people who show up in greasy Carhartts and John Deere baseball caps to medical calls. If there was more training offered, especially on the professional fire fighter level, I would jump at it, and I know quite a few others who would too.

I agree. I always have my jump-suit in my rig, that way it dosen't matter what you are doing when a call comes in. Throw on the suit and go.

 

[EMTinNEPA]

Every time volunteer EMS takes a blow, I do a happy dance.

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

Every time volunteer EMS takes a blow, I do a happy dance.

Before this uneducated comment with no argument to explain his attacks against all Professional Volunteers in EMS becomes the starting point for a "Vollies are the Devil" argument that sends this thread to the "closed basement" remember... (before you reply)...

"We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them." - Cato the Elder

 

[TransportJockey]

Just chiming in as another person who lives in an area where there would be no fire protection if it weren't for volunteers. It's a very poor rural community - you could raise taxes 50% and it wouldn't make a difference in funding, because most don't make enough to pay taxes. We don't transport, but I'm going through the academy right now - I'm amazed at all of the stuff to remember! My college chemistry classes are certainly coming in handy!

However, I agree that volunteers should be just as professional as paid - in my own department, I'm always frustrated by the people who show up in greasy Carhartts and John Deere baseball caps to medical calls. If there was more training offered, especially on the professional fire fighter level, I would jump at it, and I know quite a few others who would too.

I used to live in one of the poorest towns in NM (situated as the county seat of the largest county in the state) and they had a paid, professional fire dept. While I don't think EMS belongs with fire, they make it work. And it helps bash through the notion that poor communities need volunteer FD/EMS

 

[TransportJockey]

Honestly, I'm not even sure why our department does medical calls- they only account for 60% of our call volume, and there are other services that cover the area medically.

Oh, and I should add - our ISO rating is equal to the nearby metro areas with professional fire departments. My dept. does Fire/Rescue great - I think it should concentrate on that.

then please help convince your leadership to back out of EMS. Fire Depts have no place doing EMS

 

[Aidey]

When I first started in the fire service it was explained to me that the several local FDs all held training on the same night. This made it easier to coordinate multi-department training. I was utterly floored when I found out that the city full time, all paid department didn't have training on that night though. I asked 'why do they have training on a different night?' only to become even more shocked when I found out they don't have regular training at all.

Now that I've been around more full time FFs I've found that this seems to be the norm. In all the arguements I've heard about volly vs paid I've never been able to understand what it is about getting a paycheck that makes people think they don't need regular weekly (or even bi-weekly) training. Even now, I still don't understand why the "professionals" don't train more than the "non-professionals".

Not really on topic, but it's an observation I have that I think is relevant to the convo.

 

[EMTinNEPA]

Before this uneducated comment with no argument to explain his attacks against all Professional Volunteers in EMS becomes the starting point for a "Vollies are the Devil" argument that sends this thread to the "closed basement" remember... (before you reply)...

"We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them." - Cato the Elder

EMS will never be a well-paying or "real" career as long as there are those who are willing to do it for free. I'm tired of my chosen PROFESSION being viewed as a hobby or as an extension of the fire service instead of the legitimate division of healthcare it is and should be because of volunteers that can't guarantee QI or QA because there's no risk of them losing their job and their livelihood because of sub-par care... just their favorite hobby. This means I have an evil tongue?

 

[TransportJockey]

EMS will never be a well-paying or "real" career as long as there are those who are willing to do it for free. I'm tired of my chosen PROFESSION being viewed as a hobby or as an extension of the fire service instead of the legitimate division of healthcare it is and should be because of volunteers that can't guarantee QI or QA because there's no risk of them losing their job and their livelihood because of sub-par care... just their favorite hobby. This means I have an evil tongue?

Very well put.

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

EMS will never be a well-paying or "real" career as long as there are those who are willing to do it for free. I'm tired of my chosen PROFESSION being viewed as a hobby or as an extension of the fire service instead of the legitimate division of healthcare it is and should be because of volunteers that can't guarantee QI or QA because there's no risk of them losing their job and their livelihood because of sub-par care... just their favorite hobby. This means I have an evil tongue?

If you take away all volunteer EMS, that includes that provided by Fire (75% nationwide), SAR (96% nationwide), and Ambulance (don't know how much), then most communities will be reciveing Ambulance care from Coroners (like the "good old days"), no first repsonders on medical aids, and absolutely no SAR response. nd teh argument that the communities affected will make tough desisions to find the funds to keep emergency services paid is crap. I have seen it first hand. We have a smaller remote community in our county (pop 4,000-5,000) that used volunteer BLS, then ALS, ambulance for years until finally signing a contract to bring in a full-time paid ALS crew. The cost of taxes to maintain that level of care raises property taxes by leaps and bounds every few years. This last time they tried to raise the "Ambulance Tax" by 400% It didn't pass, so the ambulance might be going bye bye here soon, makeing the closest ambulance 35-60 minutes away in the summer and twice as long in the snowing winter.

The reason I called your tounge evil was that you gave no argument for the blanketed "Vollies are bad" "happy dance" comment that was only meant to incite the anger of those that find a valid use for some volunteer. And since I've got a "good life" all I will ask you to do is read my earlier posts on this subject that list my reasons for wanting to keep volunteer emergency workers in my community, not necissarily Ambulance, but other avenues of Emergency Medical Services that includes non-transport EMS and other Emergency Services that seem to be included in this argument by some.

 

[EMTinNEPA]

If you take away all volunteer EMS, that includes that provided by Fire (75% nationwide), SAR (96% nationwide), and Ambulance (don't know how much), then most communities will be reciveing Ambulance care from Coroners (like the "good old days"), no first repsonders on medical aids, and absolutely no SAR response.

Why do so many people on this forum find a private not-for-profit paid ALS third service such a radical idea?

nd teh argument that the communities affected will make tough desisions to find the funds to keep emergency services paid is crap. I have seen it first hand. We have a smaller remote community in our county (pop 4,000-5,000) that used volunteer BLS, then ALS, ambulance for years until finally signing a contract to bring in a full-time paid ALS crew. The cost of taxes to maintain that level of care raises property taxes by leaps and bounds every few years. This last time they tried to raise the "Ambulance Tax" by 400% It didn't pass, so the ambulance might be going bye bye here soon, makeing the closest ambulance 35-60 minutes away in the summer and twice as long in the snowing winter

Then the people running the community are idiots who will change their tune when their wife or child or parent or husband strokes out or throws a clot and has an MI or has a diabetic emergency or rolls their car seven times or goes into cardiac arrest. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and if a few people have to die because of a stupid decision, then it's tragic, but if their deaths convince the people who run the community to sacrifice new turf for the high school football field to fund a paid 24/7 ALS third service, then so be it. Or they could pay a neighboring service to staff their ambulance. There are plenty of solutions aside from leaving the lives of the community in the hands of hobbyists.

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

Why do so many people on this forum find a private not-for-profit paid ALS third service such a radical idea?.

I don't.

Then the people running the community are idiots who will change their tune when their wife or child or parent or husband strokes out or throws a clot and has an MI or has a diabetic emergency or rolls their car seven times or goes into cardiac arrest. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and if a few people have to die because of a stupid decision, then it's tragic, but if their deaths convince the people who run the community to sacrifice new turf for the high school football field to fund a paid 24/7 ALS third service, then so be it. Or they could pay a neighboring service to staff their ambulance. There are plenty of solutions aside from leaving the lives of the community in the hands of hobbyists.

The community is full of idiots, yes... but poor idiots that are losing service after service because there is not money. The Ambulance Service they use now is the NON-PROFIT THIRD SERVICE that services the the other 55,000 people in the county with 3 ALS ambulances. 3 for 55,000 and 1 for 5,000. The only reason that is a consideration is that they are remote (especially in winter). They have tried every option in the past and, yes continuing to pay for the current service is the best option from a medical standpoint, but it sucks when the "Ambulacne Tax" portion of your property tax goes from $125ish a year to over $500 a year with nothing new to show for it. The solution was to raise taxes by 200% this year and deal with it latter... typical government thinking. But again, I have no problem with having paid Ambulance nationwide (even with certain sacrafices) as I understand the arguements for this option, but consider this...

This is an exact quote from the OP’s article:

----------

One new piece of legislation could bring an end to many West Texas volunteer fire departments.

Dallas Area Representative Yvonne Davis put in 2 sections to House bill 3390 that would require the Texas Commission on Fire Protection to increase minimum educational and training standards for volunteer fire fighters.

Although it sounds good on the surface, it would require personnel to receive nearly 350 more hours of training and force departments to buy new equipment.

Many volunteers have full time jobs and may not be willing or able to commit the time and may not be able to be on staff anymore.

Howard County Volunteer Fire Chief Tommy Sullivan says it could bring death to some departments.

“It'll really be detrimental to the county, not only Howard County but all of them in West Texas that volunteer firefighters are their fire protection,” says Sullivan.

Sullivan is encouraging everyone to contact their local Legislative representative and ask them to re-examine the bill.

----------

Did anyone actually read this story or just see the word VOLUNTEER and started snearing? NO WHERE does it mention EMS, MFR, EMT, Ambulance, etc… There is nothing here to say that their new training would increase their EMS training or scope or that they even offer EMS transport. Yet this thread is a bash Volunteer EMS Fest, why? It seems to me that everyone on that bandwagon (including the normally wise R/r911) sees the word VOLUNTEER and begins to retch in disgust. GROW UP! This story had nothing to do with Volunteer Ambulance. I have no first hand knowledge of this areas (West Texas) Emergency Response System, but it seems to me that we need to ask: If this piece of legislation passes then what happens to the areas that have nothing beyond volunteers to provide Fire Protection, Vehicle Extrication, Public Service Assists, Rope Rescues, and YES First Response for Paid Ambulance? From a Paid Ambulance perspective: Good luck lifting that 400 lbs. patient with only yourself and your 120 lbs female partner (no attack on the fine women in our group). How are you gonna run a code when you are 20 minutes out from the call and have to have your partner drive while you start an IV, intubate, defibrillate, do chest compressions, ventilate, push meds, and handle the med net? GOOD LUCK!!! But wait, we are celebrating the death of all volunteers, not just Ambulance volunteers, so (and most of these provide some level of EMS, just not ambulance)… good bye SAR, good bye rescue squads, good bye boat patrol (in my area at least), good bye the forest service wilderness patrol and volunteer ski patrol, good bye Community Patrollers, good bye American Red Cross, etc… (Did we all forget the highly trained, specialist volunteers that responded to disasters like 9-11, Oklahoma City, Katrina, etc...) Hell, we don’t need their willing and dedicated service any way… you can take their job over and handle it all yourself or the government could just take 95% of your pay as taxes to fund these services… your choice.

You hate Volunteer Ambulance for whatever valid or selfish reasons, fine. I agree to a point. But to hate the volunteer service in general and rejoice in the lack of service the communities in the article will be left with… SHAME. Attitudes like that are another reason EMSers don’t get respect for what we do…

 

[lightsandsirens5]

I hate to say it but this is like................:deadhorse:

Maybe it is time we all stopped acting like children and stopped fighting and retaliating. Not just on this forum but as a whole, we need to realize that what works for one location may not work for another. While it may work for your community to have a paid full-time ALS ambulance service it is just not feasible in other areas. And just try to find people who are willing to be a full time paid paramedic for a service that gets 1500-2000 calls a year. And try to find people who want to pay the taxes to support that! Like I said it may work for you but not in another area. That is not to say that no one should not try, but some areas just cannot support it. So the next best thing is a volunteer BLS/ILS service. And like ResQ said the majority of FR and SAR is volly, and I would be willing to bet that the majority of ambulance is as well. What is wrong with that? Why is a volunteer looked down on so. They are in it because they want to be and only because they want to be. I know that some say that they aren't trained as well. #1 They are required to meet the same standards as any paid person. And #2, the training issue can be easily overcome by simple policies like my service has. You stop showing up at training, you get cut. Simple. Probably just like any paid service.

Tear the issue apart if you want, but lets not bicker about it anymore.

 

[AJ Hidell]

They are required to meet the same standards as any paid person.

You have completely missed the point.

It is because of volunteers whining -- which is the basis of this thread -- that the standards remain so low in the first place.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

You have completely missed the point.

It is because of volunteers whining -- which is the basis of this thread -- that the standards remain so low in the first place.

I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood what you were saying.

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

You have completely missed the point.

It is because of volunteers whining -- which is the basis of this thread -- that the standards remain so low in the first place.

Once again, are we gonna make this a Volunteer Ambulance discussion (which I already said I agree with to a point) or are you gonna continue to include all volunteers in Emergency Services? If it is the latter, then we have problems... by "we" I mean the citizens of America. If my volunteer service is viewed as being so substandard then I will...

Hang up my Swiftwater Gear... That means either no Swiftwater Rescue in the mountain counties or that the our counties FDs (with there 20 paid county FF's) will have to spend 100,000 grand annually to train, certify, equip and maintain enough paid full-time teams to cover the county.

Stop training and certifying in Search Management... I'm sure that the 2 deputies in my county trained in that can handle a search in our 1.2 million acres of national forest.

Stop training my dog in trailing... After all none of those dog that went looking for our fallen brothers at 9/11 were volunteer... oh, wait THEY ALL WERE! Hope my dog never finds out she is a lowly volunteer!

Stop training in High Angle Rope Rescue (VERTICAL)... Wait, that means that no one paid in the county is now equiped, trained, certified, and ready to rescue tourist buses that go over the numerous cliffs in our area or retrive the body of the first female helo firefighter in CalFire History.

Stop leading my team in Medical Training so that we can stay current and ready to help that little girl suffering from hypothermia and near drowning or that climber who broke his leg on a climb.

Ya, my level of dedication and the standards to which I adhear are so low, that I should leave this all to the paid professionals... and then our county can declare chapter 11!

If you have a problem with Volunteer Ambulance, thats fine, I understand and 95% agree with the arguement. But this thread is woven around a news story about Volunteer Firefighters and IS NOT about Volunteer Ambulance... so why do we feel the need to bash all volunteers, whose hearts are often in the right place and are doing what they can in an imperfect system. You don't think that all volunteers would jump at the chance to quit their day job and be paid for there emergency service? So even if you hate the Volunteer Ambulacnee SYSTEM why bash the Volunteers themself, they are just trying to provide the best care they can within the confines of a system that gives them less recognition than paid EMSers do... only they complain less.