Protecting EMS Providers

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Officials Won't Put EMS Units at Risk During

Storm<http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1507660/officials_wont_put_ems_units_a\

t_risk_during_storm/>

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Good for them!! Finally! Take note of the comment by the administrator " she

didn't understand why they wouldn't come " ..*

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When we conducted a pandemic flu virtual function excercise here a couple of

years ago, these same issues came up. I was in the sim lab sendingo out the

injects for EMS as the excercise progressed. When it got to the point of no

ambulances being available to transport critically ill patients from the

effected hospitals..I had one hospital employee call the sim lab and tell me

" you can't refuse to come take our patients, you're an ambulance " ..*

*There is major education that needs to be done still in what the function

and responsibilities of EMS are. It continues to amaze me there are so many

that seem to not understand when the hospital needs to be evacuated because

of disaster and employees not getting to work or refusing to put themselves

in jeopardy of illness (as was the scenario in our exercise), they do not

see EMS as having the same issues/options. One individual actually said to

me, " It's not like you have to really take care of the patients, you just

have to give them a ride, how hard it that? "

Jules*

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