I am currently an EMT in the state of California.
The ambulance company I work for only had Non-emergency BLS service when I first started.
After couple of months, management decided to open a litter van division to grow business, I'm assuming.
The problem came about when the company started to get flooded large volume of litter van calls and did not have enough staff to cover the call volume. So management decided to assign EMTs to work the litter van shifts.
Not knowing any better many of us EMTs worked those litter van shifts, and to this day many of us are still getting assigned and working those litter van shifts.
However, during those shifts, my fellow EMT colleagues and I have ran into many calls where the patient requires oxygen and was not able to monitor his or her own oxygen. At other times, we felt that patient required constant monitoring during transport.
So the question that I ponder upon is whether it is legal for our management to assign EMTs to a litter van. In my understanding, we are hired as medically trained professionals on company's employee file who is required to provide patient care including constant monitoring during transport. However, by working the litter van shifts, we are forced to not fulfill our basic duties as EMTs as that will turn the litter van call to a BLS call.
I'm afraid that one day, the company will throw the EMTs working the litter van shift under the bus if a litter van patient was to go down south during the transport.
I was not able to find any law or regulation about EMTs working in a litter van shift and was hoping that you guys can provide some insight into this matter.
The ambulance company I work for only had Non-emergency BLS service when I first started.
After couple of months, management decided to open a litter van division to grow business, I'm assuming.
The problem came about when the company started to get flooded large volume of litter van calls and did not have enough staff to cover the call volume. So management decided to assign EMTs to work the litter van shifts.
Not knowing any better many of us EMTs worked those litter van shifts, and to this day many of us are still getting assigned and working those litter van shifts.
However, during those shifts, my fellow EMT colleagues and I have ran into many calls where the patient requires oxygen and was not able to monitor his or her own oxygen. At other times, we felt that patient required constant monitoring during transport.
So the question that I ponder upon is whether it is legal for our management to assign EMTs to a litter van. In my understanding, we are hired as medically trained professionals on company's employee file who is required to provide patient care including constant monitoring during transport. However, by working the litter van shifts, we are forced to not fulfill our basic duties as EMTs as that will turn the litter van call to a BLS call.
I'm afraid that one day, the company will throw the EMTs working the litter van shift under the bus if a litter van patient was to go down south during the transport.
I was not able to find any law or regulation about EMTs working in a litter van shift and was hoping that you guys can provide some insight into this matter.
