Ff Vs. Emt

[paramedix]

Our FF's are EMT's as well, so technically they would have tension with themselves...

Although is tend to believe that when the shift commander puts a FF on ambulance duty, he is punished...!? Don't ask me why...

Put an EMT on the FT and he enjoys the ride...

 

[VentMedic]

The San Fransico EMS/FD merger demonstrated the worst of the worst possible problems and hostilities. Many lessons can be learned from that if their problems are fully resolved.

Florida is now experiencing problems with the mergers of fire and EMS. Recent headlines have stated that EMS personnel must become FFs to keep their jobs in one merger. This has happened in other parts of the state as decisions were being made how to handle two large and diverse divisions. ALS and BLS engines have also been part of the culture for many years. Disputes on how to handle those tufts as well as the private transport companies and their contracted "haul for the engine" services have been challenging for both personnel and funding. Many argued that adding more ALS ambulances either fire, county or private would be more efficient and cost effective. Florida has endured a lot of wasted resources and misapproprated money. Tax reform issues has at least made us more aware of that.

 

[firecoins]

Our FF's are EMT's as well, so technically they would have tension with themselves...

Although is tend to believe that when the shift commander puts a FF on ambulance duty, he is punished...!? Don't ask me why...

Put an EMT on the FT and he enjoys the ride...

The firefighters are not having a rivalry with themselves. You are demonstraing the standard tension between EMS and Fire as the firemen only hold the EMT certificate as a requirment and deem actually doing EMS as a punishment. The firefighters want nothing to do with EMS. They think it has nothing to do with their job description and it shouldn't.
At least FDNY kept EMS separate with in the organization. Yes engine companies still respond to calls and all FF are required to be CFRs (MFRs) but they never need to work on an ambulance.

 

[Ridryder911]

The problem is although FDNY EMS is stated as fire department and separate that is only part of it. The FDNY EMS does NOT get the same benefits, pay or respect that FDNY firefighters do. Rather they are treated more as a stepchild. If a FD wants EMS, so be it, as long as they give the same benefits and appropriate pay per level of education rating. Other wise FD's need to do their job .. fire service duties and not health care. Don't use EMS as reason for existence and cheap labor.

R/r 911

 

[Firesurfer75]

The firefighters are not having a rivalry with themselves. You are demonstraing the standard tension between EMS and Fire as the firemen only hold the EMT certificate as a requirment and deem actually doing EMS as a punishment. The firefighters want nothing to do with EMS. They think it has nothing to do with their job description and it shouldn't.
At least FDNY kept EMS separate with in the organization. Yes engine companies still respond to calls and all FF are required to be CFRs (MFRs) but they never need to work on an ambulance.

True, when I went through rookie school myself and others were "forced" to go through basic, none of us were happy about that. After many years and 3 paid departments, its evident that in most fire districts sans a few in this country that the paid fire service alone isn't justification for public tax dollars. Fire prevention and education has done it's job well over the past 20 years! It's a huge risk and gamble to do away with fire protection, and pure insane to just invest tax dollars in prevention and education alone.. suppression is a necessity, but it's hard to justify fighting structure fires every 3 months to the public, so other services are needed to justify the cost. The public at large is much better off with the FF/EMT system, but the ALS system should always be a separate division within the public sector because, let's say for example, fire suppression being part of the EMS system.. that doesn't sound too good..lol. From my experience I've seen that the reason that FD is superior is because of the strict paramilitary structure, vs. the loosely outfitted EMS systems that are paramilitary structured, but not as intense. My feelings on this are that in all honesty, EMS is an extremely busy system that isn't slowing down, the budget barely gives to EMS, thus skeleting the outfit thus burning people out! FF burnout, forget it! EMS burnout, 2-3 years in some systems. FD needs justification for budget restraints, hence EMT certs and response. I am a firm believer that the public are the ones who gain from this, it really is a good thing, but I am adamant against the idea of starting with EMS as a means to get to the FD, which as I said before, is why consolidating EMS under the FD is a bad idea.

 

[firecoins]

The problem is although FDNY EMS is stated as fire department and separate that is only part of it. The FDNY EMS does NOT get the same benefits, pay or respect that FDNY firefighters do. Rather they are treated more as a stepchild. If a FD wants EMS, so be it, as long as they give the same benefits and appropriate pay per level of education rating. Other wise FD's need to do their job .. fire service duties and not health care. Don't use EMS as reason for existence and cheap labor.

R/r 911

this is true. EMS just got "promoted" to civil service position. It isn't equal to the FFs but that will take awhile.

 

[JPINFV]

Ok, since we're going into the fire-based EMS/EMS based fire suppression debate, I'll chime in anyways (I didn't want to be the one to switch the tracks).

Is it really cost effective to have medic engines? First, as was an incident around the new year in Philly where a patient died waiting for over an hour for an ambulance, fire engines normally can't transport patients. Even the ones configured to be able to transport seem like they would be a complete pain to use for transport. So, even if you are using the fire department to run EMS, someone is still going to have to run ambulances.

Now you have another problem. If you have an paramedic engine on a medical call, then the engine is not available for a fire. Similarly, if you have a medic engine on a fire call, it isn't available to run EMS calls. Yes, it is cheaper to put medics onto fire engines than increase the number of ambulances. Unfortunately, it doesn't really solve the problem of an over taxed EMS system, just makes the numbers look better (afterall, who cares if that heart attack is sitting on-scene for 20 minutes waiting for an ambulance if the first responders arrive in 6 minutes? Sure, you've met the response time goal, but the patient isn't significantly better for it compared to if there were more ambulances).

Furthermore, I don't buy the synergy argument (i.e. what about patients from fires/hazmat/that require extraction). Interdepartment training and planning at the executive level should solve most of that. Most patients don't require the services of traditional fire department roles (rescue/fire suppression/hazmat), so it is a non-sequitur.

Finally, there's the problem with willingness. Are their fire medics who are great fire fighters and paramedics? Sure. Now, how many fire medics out there would be happy if they never ran another medical call in their entire life. You simply can't expect these individuals to keep current and improve themselves in fields that don't interest them. It's not necessarily bad or wrong, as long as your job doesn't depend on it (example: I couldn't care less about fire fighting techniques, research, operations, etc, but I'm not a fire fighter nor do I want to be one. If I did, I would care). Of course this is why the IAFC is opposing requiring better standards (such as degrees) for paramedics [page 3] [PDF file]. I would imagine that an EMS based fire suppression set up where the goal of the agency is EMS first, fire suppression second, would have piss poor fire fighters for the exact same reason that fire department has piss poor medics.


As far as paramilitary style vs more relaxed style of management, I don't think there needs to be a rank structure in medicine. Hospital personal seem to get along just fine without having a captain and seem to be able to build patient care teams comprising of numerous physicians, nurses, and other allied health providers without captains and lieutenant, epaulets or badges. Most ambulances have 2 providers on it. Is there really a need to have someone be a commander of 1? What about situations where the higher ranked individual is of a lower medical qualification (I do have a story about this actually)? Maybe it's more understandable when numerous people in different locations need to be coordinated or controlled, but I don't see that happening often in EMS.

 

[AZFF/EMT]

I am pretty lucky in my dept. we operate 3 als engine company's and six als rescue's (including one we staff for another department). When the crazy days hapen and all of our rescues are out on calls (we provide ems transport for 3 other dept's as well) we down an engine and man 2 back-up rescue's until they get home. We are a true ems based fire supression district. EMS pays our salaries, we all do rotation on the rescue's and I love it. I have actually fought more fire from a rescue than my tme on an engine.

Sun City West Fire operates 2 ALS engines and an ALS ladder, then the have a medic unit with each one. They are SCW FD EMS, not fire. They do not get the same fire retirement program but do get the same other benefits and a state retirement, and they et paid I believe a dollar less an hour on average. Which is understanable because they don't fight fire as well.

 

[CFRBryan347768]

Where

I work, you can say ff's EMS and PD, get along most of the time this includes the typical jokes, but really pull together on scene. Unless we are trying to assess and you have the cop who just wants to get his paper work done breathing down your back to get the pt's info is the only time EMS and PD do not get along.