How many medical calls you do?

[Michael13]

I was wondering how many medical calls your dept are responding to these days. We are luckey enough to have about 6 full time ambulances in our county. We average 6 or 7 calls a year, but some departments are doing about 1 or 2 a day.

[Freightrain]

My department has responded to 2 calls this year 1 was a elderly woman having trouble breathing and the second was a possible VSA male ( not a possible was starting to turn purple so no CPR was started.)

[bcfire]

OF THE 74 CALLS WE RESPONDED TO LAST YEAR, 28 WERE MEDICAL. SO FAR THIS YEAR OF THE 23 CALLS WEVE HAD, 19 HAVE BEEN MEDICAL. WE ONLY RECEIVE MEDICAL CALLS IF WE ARE DISPATCHED BY THE AMBULANCE SERVICE WHICH IN GOOD WEATHER IS, IS AT LEAST 20 MIN OUT. ALL OF THE CALLS THEY CALL US FOR ARE SERIOUS ONES, THEY DO NOT CALL FOR SPRAINED ANKLES ETC. WE HAVE DE-FIB, O2, AIRWAYS ETC AND THE AMBULANCE SERVICE WHO, AT FIRST THOUGHT WE WERE TREADING ON THEIR TURF NOW REALIZE THEY GEY UP TO 20 HELPING HANDS FOR NOTHING. THEY GIVE US REPLACEMENT SUPPLIES FOR WHAT WE USE BEFORE THEY ARRIVE. IT HAS WORKED SO WELL THAT THEY ARE ASKING FOR US TO DO RIDE ALONGS WITH THEIR PARAMEDICS. THANKS, TAKE CARE

[Michael13]

ok, so you have had 23 calls this year bcfire. our department has had 19 calls, with 2 medical. and we were cancelled before arriving on scene for both. the majority of our med calls are for lifting. if its a heavy person or in a tight space lets say. but i want to know from the busy departments what its like, because we think we might be doing on average 2 calls a day in the future. dont you get sick of resonding to that many calls? if there are 2 a day, i know noone on our department whould respond. half our guys are self employed and cannot afford to leave work during busy times of the year. ex farming, mechanics. and the other half all work shift work and arent around. so we would be stuck if we start med calls.

[bestcoast]

Originally posted by Michael13
ok, so you have had 23 calls this year bcfire. our department has had 19 calls, with 2 medical. and we were cancelled before arriving on scene for both. the majority of our med calls are for lifting. if its a heavy person or in a tight space lets say. but i want to know from the busy departments what its like, because we think we might be doing on average 2 calls a day in the future. dont you get sick of resonding to that many calls? if there are 2 a day, i know noone on our department whould respond. half our guys are self employed and cannot afford to leave work during busy times of the year. ex farming, mechanics. and the other half all work shift work and arent around. so we would be stuck if we start med calls.

Busy volunteer departments or professional departments??

[bcfire]

SORRY MICHAEL13
I WAS JUST LETTING YOU KNOW WHAT OUR SITUATION IS.WE ARE VOLUNTEER AND ARE COMMITTED TO SERIOUS MEDICAL CALLS BECAUSE THE AMBULANCE SERVICE FOR ONE THING,BEING 20 MIN AWAY COULD NOT REVIVE A CARDIAC.WE DECIDED TO GET THE GEAR AND TRAIN FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COMMUNITY.
IF YOUR MEMBER RESPONSE WOULD BE AS LOW AS YOU SAY,THEN I WOULD SUGGEST YOU NOT TAKE ON MEDICAL CALLS.
NOTHING COULD BE WORSE THAN RECEIVING A CALL FOR HELP AND NOBODY SHOWS. THANKS, BCFIRE

[Leafs Fan]

Don't want to intrude here but I may be able to help answer Micheal13's question. I am from a career FD that covers an area with a daytime population of 100,000. we have a contract with our ambulance dispatch that we are dispatched to all medical calls that involve unconcious, not breathing , airway obstuction and uncontrolled bleeds. We are also dispatched if the Ambulance is going to be over 10 minutes for anything. This eliminates us going to hold someones hand who is short of breath or who has fallen and can't get up. Having said all this ,and to give Micheal13 an idea how busy it could be for his dept, we average around 1 to 2 medical assist calls during a 24 hour period. This means we could go 2 days with out any and than get 5 calls on the same day. hope this helps.

[ndvfd_ff33]

77 Calls Last Year....43 Medicals....Ranging Anywheres from SOB to Suicides..

[whitewater-409]

On a good day ambulance service would be twenty minutes, we currently do not do first responce, from what i understand we will being doing it, within the next 4 years or so across renfrew county. So retirement might be in my future, first response sounds like alot of work.........

[whitewater-409]

SENS Rule SENS Rule!!!

[TiSme]

Our VFD answers as first responder for the ambulance service in our district wich is approx 10 mins away. Of the 245 (approx) calls we did last year about 45% we strictly medical. of the 89 (approx) calls we have done this year already I believe only about 20 to 25% have been medical (these are ruff averages). For the most part we have not ahd a problem staffing for the medical calls. Sometimes the crew compliment is rather small but we have enough people to make it work and the abulance service we work with has been very happy to see the level of support and care that we can offer in the interm of their arrival.

As I'm sure anyone who has work with abulance services. They get busty just like us and a 10min usual response can quickly become longer. For the most part we have been fortunate to have (along with the shift workers) a few members who work localy in the community, who's employers see the benifit tot he community that we supply and allow them to respond from work to the hall during the day when they are needed.

But I have to greatly agree with BCFIRE. If you are not going to be able to cover the service then I would not suggest taking on the role. If you are dispatched as a possible intervention soucre and are not able to respond due to lack of staff, lthough unfortunate, can be understandable. But if you take on, or request, the role then you are accepting the responsibility that there will be people there to help ANYTIME someone needs it.

If you due take on the role and spend the time to interact and really get to know the ambulence service you are going to be assisting. You will find that they will help you out as much as they can related to training, orientation and for those intrested in the medical, ambulance, service information and ride alongs to give you a better understanding of what you are looking at get into.

We have a very good relationship with the ambulance service we assist. We both know what the other expects of each other and the procedures tht make the transition go as smoothly and efficeintly for both the patien and the ambulace crew. After all we are just assisting them. But from this we have regular taining times throught the year when they bring one of there units out to our hall. This gives us a chance to go over differnet senarious with them, learn where everything is kept in case we need to grab something from the truck for them, even get a feel for driving or refresher incase we are needed to drive for them while they work with the patients in the back (side note, Those who assit with driveing must have class 4 and NFPD for our district). Our EMR and EMT's get further training and refresher in IV's etc.

If you get the chance it really can be an interesting mutually benifical opportunity. After all strictly medical calls a side. You are most likely working with these folks anyway when you are on an MVA or a serious fire.


Let's be safe out there!!

[Michael13]

ok , i worded that wrong. we have the guys available to resond to med calls. but i feel they are going to get tired of resonding to them if it comes down to an average of 2 calls a day. we have excellent ambulance coverage in our area. we have a base right in town. but with increasing calls we are afraid that dispatch will pull our buses out of town and send them to the city for the day. our ambulances cover the whole county of aprox. 60,000 residents. the whole county has i think about 9 ambulances. these are ballpark gueses. but one thing you guys said was if you don't feel you will be able to handle med calls then dont take them on. i have a feeling we dont have a choice. when the closest ambualnce is 20+ mins away, dispatch will page, and thats what our agreement is now. 20+ mins way we get called. so thats the only med calls we get are when a bus has to come from far away. but if they pull the buses out of our town they they are delayed by 20+ mins everytime. i guess only time will tell. we just fear we will be doing 100 med calls a year and we only do 50 fire calls a year now.

[TiSme]

Yes when I was reffering to not taking them on. I was meaning if your department was negotiating to take on a bigger role, or had been asked if you would be capable of greater assistance then polite refusal would have been the best choice.

But if it's a case of district mandate. Well ... when the pager goes ... anyone who's available answers. In that aspect there is only a limited amount you can do.

Has anyone been able to supply you with average numbers for call load last year and what they project could be your expected call load?

2 calls a day is an lot. Good luck with your situatiion. I hope it all works out okay in the end.

[bcfire]

WELL SAID TiSme, THANK YOU. YOUR SITUATION IS THE SAME AS OURS EXCEPT IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU GET MORE MEDS THAN US. TAKE CARE.

[bcfire]

whitewater-409
don't crap out, you will find that medical calls can be as beneficial and rewarding as your fire calls. In Renfrew county you probably won't be run off your feet Train and go for it, we did and no one has looked back. Take care ,BCFIRE

[Jeff67]

I would like to add something to this discussion , if you don't mind. I work full time and I am also a paid on call member for a fire department in BC. Last year we responded to over 800 calls for a population base of 34,000 people. As a paid on call member I find it rewarding to attend any and all calls that we are paged out for. As for staffing , at my hall we have 22 members and on average we will have 12 attend on most calls .. Would it be possible to recruit more members to ease the pressure on the existing membership ? It is actually very interesting to attend the medical calls , most of the time. Sometimes we get called and we find someone with shortness of breath sitting in their chair , with their packed bag beside them, waiting for the ambulance to show up to take them to the hospital. Those calls are very frustrating because it takes our unit out of service until EHS arrives to take over , sometimes it can be 15 to 20 minutes , if they are busy.
But over all, it is rewarding to help someone that actually needs your help.

[firechixrock]

we had 3 yesterday but that is what we average a week usually :)

[blackhole85]

i recently became a volunteer ff in a small town, and our dept covers an area including about 10000 people. Last year we responded to about 200 calls, including meds. Up until may, we had a tiered response system with the ambulance, where depending on the situation, we would get called and/or the ambulance, depending on the severity of the call. In may, all of that changed....now we only get toned out if the ambulance is 15+ min away, no matter what the severity. It has its up side of relieving some work from our dept, but has a lot more downsides. For one, if there is a vsa in town, and the ambulance is 12 min away, we dont get called even though we could be there in under 10 min, for cpr or defib. By the time the bus gets there we could already be working on, or already have revived, the patient. Also, our number of calls are way down.....we recently went two weeks without a call, meanwhile there were 2 vsa's in town which we could have assisted on. Our dept has all the training and supplies to respond to med calls but now its all sitting there collecting dust while people are getting hurt and waiting 15 min for the ambulance.

[telesquirt]

We always handle over 1000 calls per year with most being tiered response with ambulance staff.
If ambulance is being delayed we go on as a first response,that entails one full time member responding from the hall with our rescue and a page put in for 2 vollunteers to call in for directions to the scene.All our full time and some vollys are first responders.
We have a great raport with the ambulance staff and I know they value us as much as we do them.