State laws become roadblock to medical response in crisis

[fm_emt]

"The Uniform Law Commissioners, a nonprofit legal group made up of lawyers from all over the country, has come up with the Uniform Emergency Volunteer Healthcare Practitioners Act. Under the act, medical personnel would be registered and their credentials checked in their home states. Then, in the event of a national emergency, they'd be able to help immediately anywhere in the United States."


Story here...

 

[ffemt8978]

Moved to News Section

Sounds like a good idea, but I'm leary of anything created by lawyers to determine how EMS is supposed to work.

 

[fm_emt]

Yeah, I'm leery of anything most lawyers do. But who knows, maybe they've come up with something good. I'm interested in seeing the text of the proposed legislation, personally.

I wish that there was a law requiring employers to give folks like me that have a full time day job and part time EMT gig time off to respond to stuff like the Katrina aftermath. I was all ready to go, only to have HR tell me that I can't because I didn't have adequate vacation hours accrued yet. :|

But then there's the whole "gov't telling business how to run" yadda yadda..

 

[Flight-LP]

This a great idea and one that will probably be adopted in the gulf region, especially after last years cluster f#&%. More than likely, this will not affect EMS, this is more in place for professional licenseing organizations at the nursing and physician level. Most states, if not all, have EMS regulations that cover mass casualty and natural disasters. These regulations generally allow for EMS operations across state lines in such times of need. Plus many area have EMS or trauma councils that create contingency plans for such incidents. For example, Texas and Louisiana both have contingency operation plans in place for ground and air resources in the event another hurricane decides to visit. It will be interesting to see haow this proposal works out....