San Jose Fire Considering Transport

[ghost02]

"In 2010, San Jose gutted the fire department's capability to meet our emergency medical response times by closing Fire Engines 30, 33, 34, 35, Truck 30, the Hazardous Incident Team and removing fire fighters from 10 truck companies, it makes little sense for San Jose to jump into the ambulance business before restoring these cuts and improving our response times."

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/loca...nts-to-Cut-Down-Response-Times-296528011.html

 

[Angel]

Gasp....no really this would be crazy

Small trucks? Meaning not an ambulance?? What's that about, and second the union has a point, they're down staffed so how would that translate into faster response times?
Sure, kick RM out since they are doing terrible, but open it to bid....hmm

 

[DrParasite]

or, you can just create San Jose EMS, a municipal EMS agency similar to the PD and FD, and staff it with non-firefighters (which you don't have to pay as much to employ), and the city can hold themselves accountable for the level of service they provide....... as well as the number of units they have

 

[Angel]

CA hardly does anything that makes sense. Im not even sure SJ has the budget for it. but with cost of living itd have to pay pretty decent.

 

[jgmedic]

The single role medic thing could work for SJFD, a lot of aspiring fire guys would work for less money to be a part of a dept and wear an FD uniform. I did it for a little while, and while I loved it(equipment was way nicer, suppression guys loved not having to be on boxes, dept treated us very well for the most part), the city was sold on the program as a cost saving measure and the pay was far less than what I made at AMR. But, had the pay been even a little better, I never would have gone back.

 

[Tigger]

I don't understand why any fire department that covers an urban area would want to running ambulances. It's nearly impossible to make money running 911 in an urban areas and is going to get harder with more and more patients on medicaid and medicare and their abysmal reimbursement rates.

Sure, if you're a little department covering a wealthy survey you might be able to make some money of transport, but not in a city.

 

[SandpitMedic]

Lets just change the name to the EMS Department.

How many fires are they really fighting?

<sarcasm>