Which should EMS be merged with

If your agency were to merge with another service which would it be.

  • Fire Department

    Votes: 22 71.0%

  • Law enforcement agency

    Votes: 9 29.0%
  • Total voters
    31
  • Poll closed .
lightsandsirens5 said:
And tyrants trying to take over EMS.:wacko:
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My towns FD was offered the ambulance service because it had no coordinator. The fire chief said no we don't want ambulance. So the town dumped the ambulnce service on the community constable's lap. Now the constable is resonsile for ambulance, animal control, parking enforcement, traffic enforcement, And enforcement of various municial bylaws. This took place before i joined the service a year ago.
 
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lightsandsirens5,

You've attempted express your opinions in defense of Fire Fighters. Now, let's have the reasons why you have not advanced to the Paramedic level. It really isn't that much extra education but it does bring improved patient care with advanced assessment and treatments. Is fire fighting your first priority? Do you not have any interest in medicine beyond a first-aid level? The arguments presented in defense of fire fighters are exactly why fire fighting and medicine are two very different fields.

lightsandsirens5 said:
(Engine of big, fat, dumb clowns rolls up on scene, clowns jump out, run into burning house, roof collapses, kills all of them.)
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lightsandsirens5 said:
Typical opinion of firefighters: Fat, dumb, and happy. (And tyrants trying to take over EMS.:wacko:)
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lightsandsirens5 said:
All of what you have said is a jab in the eye of almost every single firefighter in this country.
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Talk about a jab in the eye of FFs! Your words give a harsh description and truly offend. You have used this description of firefighters in two posts. Reading back I did not see anyone else use this description. I must question your opinions here since you use very negative words about fire fighters. Is this how you truly see fire fighters even though you are trying to defend them?

Your arguments are contradictory and further illustrate why fire and EMS are very different. If you do not like EMS, stick to fire fighting and please don't advance to the Paramedic level. Try to do at least one job well and if you decide it is fire fighting, find a better way to present a pro FD argument rather than using more negativity.
 
lightsandsirens, I was a professional firefighter for nearly seven years. That's PROFESSIONAL, not a volunteer or a wannabe who paid his way through some academy hoping to be one some day. I have a second bachelors degree with a minor in fire science. You're not going tell me anything about the fire service that I don't know, so save your breath.

I have also actually worked in police based EMS. I have taught students from both professions. Have you? Do you have any professional experience in either system, or in educating them, to qualify you to authoritatively comment on them? Or are you just getting overly defensive over what was intended to be an intelligent conversation, based upon factual information, and not a emotional outburst based upon our delicate "feelings"?

Fortsmithman intended an intelligent thread here. You obviously have some opinions to offer on the subject, and are certainly as welcome as anyone to do so. But when you go off half-cocked with this insulting and argumentative emotional rant like this, your points are completely lost in the rhetoric.
 
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VentMedic said:
lightsandsirens5,

You've attempted express your opinions in defense of Fire Fighters. Now, let's have the reasons why you have not advanced to the Paramedic level. It really isn't that much extra education but it does bring improved patient care with advanced assessment and treatments. Is fire fighting your first priority? Do you not have any interest in medicine beyond a first-aid level? The arguments presented in defense of fire fighters are exactly why fire fighting and medicine are two very different fields.
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Well, my county dosent have paramedic protocols and will not support medics. I am going to advance as soon as I can afford it.



VentMedic said:
Talk about a jab in the eye of FFs! Your words give a harsh description and truly offend. You have used this description of firefighters in two posts. Reading back I did not see anyone else use this description. I must question your opinions here since you use very negative words about fire fighters. Is this how you truly see fire fighters even though you are trying to defend them?

Your arguments are contradictory and further illustrate why fire and EMS are very different. If you do not like EMS, stick to fire fighting and please don't advance to the Paramedic level. Try to do at least one job well and if you decide it is fire fighting, find a better way to present a pro FD argument rather than using more negativity.
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True, I'm sorry that I lost my mind and went balistic.:blush: I should not have used those descriptions, it was my opinion that that is the way many view firefighters, I may be wrong.

I do think that fire and EMS (at least advanced and transporting EMS) need to be seperate. Maybe something like EMS is a seperate agency and fire still provides basic first response would work. As for the FD transporting.....that is probably not a good idea. Yes EMS needs to be on it's own, but don't pull all EMS from the FD.
 
AJ Hidell said:
lightsandsirens, I was a professional firefighter for nearly seven years. That's PROFESSIONAL, not a volunteer or a wannabe who paid his way through some academy hoping to be one some day. I have a second bachelors degree with a minor in fire science. You're not going tell me anything about the fire service that I don't know, so save your breath.

I have also actually worked in police based EMS. I have taught students from both professions. Have you? Do you have any professional experience in either system, or in educating them, to qualify you to authoritatively comment on them? Or are you just getting overly defensive over what was intended to be an intelligent conversation, based upon factual information, and not a emotional outburst based upon our delicate "feelings"?

Fortsmithman intended an intelligent thread here. You obviously have some opinions to offer on the subject, and are certainly as welcome as anyone to do so. But when you go off half-cocked with this insulting and argumentative emotional rant like this, your points are completely lost in the rhetoric.
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Again, I'm sorry. See my previous post.
 
Here in Fort Smith we have a fire chief who knows that fire and EMS needs to be be separate. Because he was offered the towns ambulance service and he refused to take it over.
 
EMS should be a separate agency. Too many conflicts in the firehouse, not enough understanding of the job from the P.D. side.
 
I would have to say that if we had to merge with another public safety agency it would be in our best interest and our patients to join with the fire service. It could come down to a trust issue, if faced with a patient that was involved in some not so legal activities before requesting our help they might not be willing to call for an ambulance or disclose pertinent information for fear of going to jail or other legal consequences.
 
Here's a unique thing. WE ARE NOT PUBLIC SAFETY NOR HAVE WE EVER BEEN!

We are medical, just like the name says. Never had a safety course in EMS, never taught one either, never discussed in the curriculum.

We have as much business in either one of those than attaching to a furniture store.

R/r 911
 
That could be another debate topic, the agency I work for and those around in our area do safety talks with school children about bike safety, I think that we not just an expensive over sized taxi cab. I also feel that are lack of openness with the public has made us the red headed step child of the emergency service, were young, if we don’t want to end up fire or law enforcement based ems we need to get out there and let the public see us, let do some preventative care.
 
EMS should not be merged with anything.

EMS is EMS
Fire is Fire
Law enforcement is Law enforcement
 
Why does EMS have to be merged with anyone?

There is this belief that EMS is the poor cousin, when infact, it is Fire that should be the poor cousin.Fire spend more time (Paid Services) doing everyone elses work than their own.

Usually when organisations merge, there is some commonality, where is the commonality between ems, fire & law enforcment? There is none. The core business of fire, is fightin fires, where is thecorellation between that & EMS?

Law enforcment have their own issues, none of which are medical.

I fail to see why this is a relevant topic. The topic should be what stratergies can be put in place to ensure EMS is
  1. Funded properly
  2. Educated properly
  3. Run economically responsibly
  4. Free from the threat of takeover from Fire as they try to justify their existance though their lack of work
  5. Paid staffin at professional levels with genuine career progression, not based of Fire

Lets push EMS as a proper career, not an add on to fire.
 
Well, the fire departments should be merged with EMS. After all, there's a much greater need for paramedics, so we should insure that everyone is a medic first, and then use fire fighter as some minor rung on the advancement ladder.

Paramedics: Because fire fighters need heroes too.
 
I believe we need to merge EMS with the Correctional department or Sanitational Department. It just makes sense.
 
I believe the fire based ems system I work in works really well. 6 firefighter/emt/paramedics on every call at a minimum. MVA's get more depending on the severity. In my neck of the woods there is no debate over it. It is what we do and everyone I know loves it. Our engines have 2 basics and 2 medics and our rescues are 1 and 1. We do not fight a whole lot of fire but we run a lot of medical calls and MVA's. We are a total hazard system providing Fire, EMS, extrication and technical rescue. We train every shift on fire related topics and have to complete 60 hours of CE's not including our Refresher class.

It is not too much to do both.

I do think the a fire department with ALS engine company's along with an EMS division may be a great way to go, but seperate private services seem to cause a lot of headache's. No oversight, no pride, no employee retention just a revolving door. With the EMS division set-up there is a place for the men and women who do not want to fight fire to also provide emergency services and work in public safety. Any problems at the station our due to weak leadership who allow it and bad apples who chose to be :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored:'s.

I think Fire and EMS go hand in hand and EMS should be public safety. If you dial 911 the people who show up should be a public safety agency.

I know in the phoenix metro area we have been doing the fire based ems thing for years and the hard times of adjusting are in the past and many places the change is new or is still going on and there are oldtimers on each side who do not want to accept the change and will do anything to cause problems.
 
Then why not combine fire with police? That way we can have it be a three way with members trained as EMTs, fire suppression technicians, and officers.
 
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AZFF/EMT said:
I believe the fire based ems system I work in works really well. 6 firefighter/emt/paramedics on every call at a minimum. MVA's get more depending on the severity. In my neck of the woods there is no debate over it. It is what we do and everyone I know loves it. Our engines have 2 basics and 2 medics and our rescues are 1 and 1. We do not fight a whole lot of fire but we run a lot of medical calls and MVA's. We are a total hazard system providing Fire, EMS, extrication and technical rescue. We train every shift on fire related topics and have to complete 60 hours of CE's not including our Refresher class.

It is not too much to do both.

I do think the a fire department with ALS engine company's along with an EMS division may be a great way to go, but seperate private services seem to cause a lot of headache's. No oversight, no pride, no employee retention just a revolving door. With the EMS division set-up there is a place for the men and women who do not want to fight fire to also provide emergency services and work in public safety. Any problems at the station our due to weak leadership who allow it and bad apples who chose to be :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored:'s.

I think Fire and EMS go hand in hand and EMS should be public safety. If you dial 911 the people who show up should be a public safety agency.

I know in the phoenix metro area we have been doing the fire based ems thing for years and the hard times of adjusting are in the past and many places the change is new or is still going on and there are oldtimers on each side who do not want to accept the change and will do anything to cause problems.
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Do you require every single person who just wants to run EMS to also be a FF? If so, that is my main problem. I'm sorry, but I want to be a medical proffesional, not a crosstrained JOAT. If EMS is to be stuck staying with fire, at least let the medics who want to try and be hired to not have to go through fire training if they are just going to work a rescue.
 
AZFF/EMT said:
In my neck of the woods there is no debate over it.
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Lack of debate = lack of progress

That's why Arizona is one of the most backwards, unprogressive states in the US for EMS. Not a single accredited paramedic school in the entire state. Medic mills galore. Restrictive, bare bones, cookbook protocols that constrain even the flight medics. Nurses call your shots. Yeah, a lack of debate has served you well. Not. But I guess if it's all you've ever known, it's no surprise that you don't know any better.
 
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