Toddler died after ambulance delay!

[enjoynz]

Would like you views on this one, please!

This has become a murder case...not because the ambulance service didn't get the child to hospital quickly...but because of the person that caused the head injury to the child.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2308635/Cherish-died-after-St-John-delay

A local doctor was dispatched to the address, as the ambulance for that town, was not in town at that time.

Cheers Enjoynz

 

[enjoynz]

I'm surprised no one had anything to say about this. So I thought I'd put a few of my thought's forward.

1. 2 & 1/2 hours time to get to hospital is not exceptable, given the time that the first ambulance arrived 25 mins into the call.
Average on scene time is no more than 20 minutes...unless the patient is trapped.

2. This town is small but not that small, so should they have covered the area with another ambulance while the other was out of town?
This is normal practice usually, so that the response times are quicker.
Of course you have to have a spare ambulance and crew at the time to do that.

3. They are lucky to have a doctor willing to respond...wouldn't happen in the area I live in.

4. Should the chopper have been called earlier? Given the fact that it was a head injury and the doctor you would think, would have picked that up, then I'd say yes.
But then what were they doing to stabilize the patient? Did she code at all during this time?

5. Are the family making a whole big scene of this, to put the media light on the ambulance service....
given the fact that the child wouldn't be died if they hadn't sustained a head injury in the first place?

Would be nice to hear from you...you must have your own thoughts on this call, be it positive or negative.

Enjoynz

 

[AJ Hidell]

To be honest, the article was so confusing to me that I couldn't really get a clear idea of what exactly happened. That's why I hesitate to comment on the situation. I also am not familiar enough with NZ levels of service and education to make any informed judgements on what should have happened there. I mean, we can all sit back and say that everyone ought to have an ambulance less than ten minutes away, but the truth is that when you move to the boondocks, that's the risk you willingly take.

Assuming I clearly understand what happened here, it does sound like the SJA crew pulled a typical American EMT-B move, which is to panic when they encounter a patient whose problem is not one of the limited few that they were trained to assess and treat, and punt it to "ALS". Just like all the Maryland volunteer EMTs who call a helicopter or ALS intercept every time they see blood at an MVA. They should have simply transported immediately, addressing the ABCs as well as possible enroute. Their failure to do so resulted in catastrophic consequences. It sounds like those providers, and probably the entire organization, should seriously review their policies and training to assure that this practice stops immediately.

 

[enjoynz]

OK just to fill you in a little...the officer that was sent to the call was a AO (Ambulance Officer) level, which is equal to your EMT-B level,
within reason, our AO's are trained in things like LMA's too..so no they were not ALS.

As they were probably a paid staff member, they may will have been on their own, if no vollie was on at that station
...which is another problem in the service....the fact that the ambulance service here in NZ is under funded and they need 400 more staff, which the Government well knows!

The level of education as far as an AO goes...the average time to become one, is two years in the service,
working your way up, doing courses towards that level.They work on the ambulance over this time with paid staff normally. Hence the reason that most people starting in the service here are volunteers.
They do not go to a EMT-B course first, then go find work on an ambulance.

As it cost $50.000? and 3 years in university to be a medic (We call them Advanced Paramedic). We do not have that many.
(Guess we come under that same umbrella in training to become a medic as England and Canada)!
Most medic's in NZ work they way up through the service first, so have a lot of on road experience.
There are those that go straight to doing the university course, but when they join the ambulance service they are not allowed to acted at a medic level, until they have on road experience.

So for instance in our region, A Medic mans the No1 ambulance in the city..you'd call that ALS I guess, and also the chopper.
There is only 1 Medic on this truck at a time, with a EMT-I level normally.

Others go around the region as needed, in a service car packed with all their gears.

Hope that gives you a little insight at least.

Enjoynz