Your 911 EMS Service, NYC

John McFarland Passes Away

gaburbano — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:23:59 +0000

NYC EMS Asst Chief John McFarland, passed away after a battle with a cancerous brain tumor.
See the video here

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chief McFarland was married to Joanne Kovak, who herself served EMS. They had young children and lived in Yonkers, NY.

For almost 30yrs. Chief McFarland served EMS in all aspects of the job. Some described the man as a “hard-ass” but my personal interactions with the gentleman, showed that he truly loved this job, and had a lot of respect for the men and women of EMS. He will be missed, and my condolences to his family.

He was a dedicated man, a family man, a working man…

Changes NYC REMAC Protocols

gaburbano — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:17:00 +0000

A major change to the current remac protocol may come as the state has approved a change in the Peds Statep Protocol.
On tues, January 31st, at the request of the NYC REMAC, the State approved Standing Orders Midazolam for the treatment of children in Status Epilepticus. Paramedics see this as a major win, that will benefit children who are actively seizing. Normally any narcotic or controlled substance had to get the phone approval of a telemetry doctor prior to its administration. This delayed treatment.
Now under the new guidelines, Midazolam is approved for administration under standing order.

Good win.. and expands on the current protocols that have decreased the involvement of telemetry doctors and increased the level of responsibility, and capability of Field Paramedics.

The Papermedic..

gaburbano — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:16:16 +0000

A few years ago, EMS Management realized that perhaps “Officers” should be Paramedics.

Yes, there are arguments on both sides of this issue. Questions arise from those members among our EMTs.
Is it really necessary that an Officer be a Paramedic?
Well, “Yes” and “No”. First to the “No”..
No, administratively as far as the issuing of equipment and the paper work duties of an officer, “No” you don’t have to be a Paramedic.You really don’t have to be an EMT.

If we are talking about the clerical aspects of the job, anyone can do it.

Now for the “Yes”.
The case is that we are not just speaking about the clerical aspects of being an Officer. Otherwise, like I already pointed out, you don’t even need to be an EMT.

Anyone with basic clerical skills and knowledge of how things get done, could do it.
We are speaking about a person, whom as an officer, needs to be more than just a clerical person. That officer needs to be able to understand and know the job of the people he/she supervises.
That person needs to know the skills of the people he/she supervises and be able aid, and if necessary correct, instruct and guide that employee.
How can this be done if the person that he/she supervises is higher trained and higher educated than the Supervisor?

Here is the problem with this train of thought.

Since the beginning of EMS, the position of Supervisor, was allowed to be filled by anyone who already worked for EMS. So any EMT or Paramedic was able to take the “Promotion”.

The problem with this “Promotion” is that Paramedics already make almost the same as a Lt or Supervisor. In the past, the only Paramedics that became Supervisors:

Those that because of injuries, couldn’t work on the truck anymore.
Those that wanted to go through the chain of command.
Those that didn’t want to work the truck anymore.

Salarywise, for an EMT, becoming a Lt means almost $10,000 per year raise.

For a Paramedic, its only a $1400 per year raise.

Since the department started making the “Paramedic-Preferred” requirement for Lts, many people have now gone to Paramedic school on the outside or taking the Department’s course, then taking the promotion. This means almost “No” and in many cases actually “No” field experience.

Several senior officer titles, Captains, Deputy Chiefs and Division Chiefs have very little if any Paramedic Field Experience.These are called “PaperMedics”.

And so the patch above is dedicated to them.

EMS Training and Education

gaburbano — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:53:04 +0000

The hottest topic in NYC EMS. Training and Education.

Now in the past, EMTs and Paramedics who worked for the NYC Fire Department were re-certified on the 3yr cycle as required by the state. Until 3yrs ago, when the Fire Department and the union agreed to enter into a 5yr Re-certification Pilot Program.

This program allowed the fire department EMTs and Paramedics to automatically become re-certified for 5yrs without having to take the NYS Certifying Exam for each title or test on the skills for each certification. Rather than every 3yrs go through a re-certification course of 2 weeks for EMTs and 3 weeks for Paramedics, they could attend mandatory 1hr sessions at their stations per month called “Drills” and 1 7hr lecture/practice session per 6 month period called “Core” training.

The underlying thought behind this is that since NYC is the busiest EMS system in the world, the EMTS and Paramedics of NYC constantly practice, and therefore can bypass the basic testing of skills and knowledge.

At a quicklook, it seems like a feasible idea with real-world application. The city knew that these re-certification courses cost money, time and manpower. It was to the city’s advantage that they discard the normal training methods and employ the above.

The union obtained a small amount of money for their members for participating in this program. (very small)

Why is this a problem? Well, here goes…

On the EMT level,this method of training is not bad. Its not great but its not bad…

On the Paramedic level this method of training is a disaster. Why?

Well, the entire program should have encompassed the Basic Life Support requirements plus the Advanced Life Support requirement for Paramedics. It didn’t..

Out of all the “Core” Training” programs, only 2 really contained any level of Paramedic Skills or training. Those contained very little time on skills, and not much information on Paramedic Skills. Almost every Core Training, and almost every Drill were centered and concentrated on BLS skills.

On 1 or 2 occasions, the State, which reserved the right to randomly test participants in the program and oversee the program itself, the people failed the most basic skill they were tested on.

This author could tell you that with almost 21yr experience as a Paramedic, almost 25yrs on the job, if I was to sit for a state test today, I would either barely pass or fail altogether.

Bottom line, this program is a failure. It provides very little knowledge, and very little training for the field personnel.

Currently the City and the union will meet again on changes the city will make with regards to the program.

Public Agencies, unions, pensions and other benefits..

gaburbano — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:14:03 +0000

Recently there has been a wave of attacks rendered on public agencies, union, pensions and benefits provided to the people who work in many government fields.
Now getting straight to the point. Most people who work for government agencies are paid less than their counterparts in the private industry.
Most pensions are significantly lower than that of traditional employee pension plans in the private sector.
So why the attack on public sector employees and public unions?
Well, here are some facts.
Public unions negotiate with the public agencies on all these issues. Pensions, benefits, health plans and salaries.
While salaries are lower as are pensions, the fact is that regardless of how Wall St does or doesnt, public pensions are guaranteed by the government aka the ” Taxpayer”.
When Wall St is doing well, the pension systems get high return on the money they invest from employee contributions and in actuality its a rare occurrence when public pensions have had to be subsidized by “taxpayer” money and the times that this has happened its occurred cause of poor management by the government or underfunding of the pensions.
In the private sector, if the plan doesnt fair well, the return isnt good and the employee could lose much if not all of the money they invested. There are no guarantees.
In bad times, politicians incite the public into thinking that public employees are these rich, overpaid employees when in fact even in NYC the average retiree gets about $28,000 per year. Like anything, some get much higher amounts, but most pensioners actually receive pensions either below or just above the poverty lines and continue to work after retiring.
In the private sector , unless the company raids the pension plans, or fails miserably, the average pensions are in the hundreds of thousands and perhaps in the millions depending on the job. These pension plans can be an average of $65,000 to as much as $!50,000 annuities.
The bottom line is this. Cops, firefighters, EMS and sanitation services are critical services for any municipality. Other critical services are also handled by the public unions, like sewage and water services. Besides that are non-critical but nonetheless vital services to the public.
Some of these are street and highway repair, bridges and tunnels. Toll collectors, backbone city services like the court system, county clerks and tax collectors, DMV services, inspectors for service like building inspections, licensing and violation issuing agencies all are made up of public employees, which in many cases generate profits to the city they work for.
Anne Coultier made a comment, that if she could have it her way, she would get rid of all government employees.
Well, who will put the fire out at her house?
Who will come to her aid, when someone steals from her,
When someone violates a copyright of one of her many books, who will take care of the court processing?
If she has a heart attack or is involved in a car accident, who will come to her aid?
Who will repair the streets, highways and bridges she drives on?
Who will she trust when she flies?
What about inspections and construction guidelines and rules for her building or house?

Its very easy to say, lets get rid of government workers, but in actuality many are skilled workers that possess skills that most dont and do jobs that many wont and lower salaries than most are willing to work for.
The only thing that attracts people to these jobs are the desire to commit their lives to public service, a guarantee of employment and whatever benefits, medical and pension they may receive. Even though those very same benefits are much lower than the private sector.

New Year, No Snow?

gaburbano — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:23:43 +0000

1 Year ago, on Christmas Day, 23 inches of snow landed throughout most parts of the city. Like any snow at all, it paralyzed the city. It also paralyzed the Emergency Services in general but affected the most, the Emergency Medical Services. Ambulances were stuck everywhere, unable to respond to emergencies, as record number of calls came into the 911 system.

Ambulances stuck in the snow and emergency vehicles actually abandoned in the streets of NY. The department of sanitation took a lot of heat for its inability to keep up with the snow removal, it was blamed in the after days with accusations of “slow-downs”. There was actually several investigations into whether or not there was a “work-slow-down” due to the rumors that the city was looking to cut sanitations workforce and demoted several officers throughout the city, to save money. Of-course much of this information came out of the fact that the Deputy Mayor, Steve Goldsmith aka, “wife-beater” had Sanitation in his sights.
The only person to be directly blamed for EMS’ inability to respond to calls and the abundance of 911 medical calls that could not get ambulances was John Peruggia, then Chief of EMS.
Now yours truly as well as many in EMS knows that it was only a matter of time before John Peruggia would be gone.
After all, some of his policies and actions actually cost the city millions of dollars. His fall out with the Union, and arbitration decisions against the department, not to mention the “Conflict of Interests” ruling against him surely didn’t help.
But why actually did he get canned? We he didn’t get canned, he was removed from his post.
The fact is that Bruno, from the Office of Emergency Mis-management as many call it, didn’t sound the alarm, and the Mayor and all his senior people were on vacation. As the snow came down in record numbers, the Mayors office was caught with their pants down and to of town… The Mayor was ill informed about the actual emergency with EMS and Peruggia was blamed..
So that was a quick recap of how the New Year started in 2010.
How are we doing so far? Well we started the New Year with record 911 calls for EMS. It seems like over 5000.. Of course thats not confirmed yet, but sources did comment how the last call numbers on Jan. 1st just before midnight was around over 5000.
The year is no different than most years.
Not much is going on legislative-wise as far as EMS is concerned.
Local 2507 has had a change in leadership with Patrick Bahnken leaving after almost 11yrs as President.
We are still without a contract, with no major breakthrough predicted anytime soon, which by the way may not be a bad thing.
The economy isn’t doing well, and public unions and public employees are still under fire.
A new line of hospitals are threatening to be closed, with that comes the closing of their ambulance departments, and we stem to lose many employees as NYPD is gearing to start a new class.

Happy New Years, NYC ..