Many 9-1-1 Calls for

Medics Get Delayed

ST. MARY’S TODAY

LEONARDTOWN – St. Mary’s commissioners Tom Mattingly (D. Leonardtown) and Larry Jarboe (R. Golden Beach) will work with Public Safety Director Tim Cameron to do ground work for a Task Force to retrieve the Advanced Life Support in the county from imminent doom, the Board of County Commissioners decided on Tuesday.

The situation has already reached a crisis point because of dearth of Advanced Life Support volunteers.

At least two shifts during last month had no medical unit on duty and several advanced life support calls, including a cardiac arrest case, went without a paramedic, local ALS providers here have deplored.

“First, the on-duty medic unit is often not available for dispatch on a 9-1-1 call because it is committed elsewhere; thus a patient needing ALS may not receive this critical service," Dennis Gordge, who has been a member of the ALS Unit for more than 22 years, said.

Local ALS providers regret that the county government was approached several years ago more than once to allow county employees to respond to calls while at work, but that the powers-that-be in the county deemed it out of the question.

ALS providers give goose-pimpling account of the situation prevailing on the ground, indicative of the fact that St. Mary’s County might be ill-prepared to meet any major emergency.

Cameron said it was not true that any significant number of 9-1-1 ALS calls go unattended, but agreed that delays often happen and that corrective measures have to be taken immediately. “The greatest challenge is during the day,” Cameron said. “Let alone ALS units, we face with dearth volunteers for Basic Life Support also,” he said.

He said rescue squads at Hollywood, Leonardtown and Mechanicsville were all challenged for more volunteers and only Lexington Parksi smooth sailing as employers allow their workers to respond to emergency calls.

“The ALS providers requested a crew of half dozen people, but that was not approved in the budget,” Cameron said. He said the commissioners were of the view that increase in the paid staff might not help the situation and wanted to find ways to strengthen volunteerism. “The Task Force would focus on boosting volunteerism,” Cameron said.

While adopting a hazard mitigation plan, the Board of County Commissioners recently acknowledged that St. Mary’s county is vulnerable to natural hazards such as coastal erosion, flooding, extreme weather conditions and wildfires that can result in property loss, loss of life, economic hardship and threats to public safety and health.

Gordge said ALS providers have let gone their pride and were asking for help because of a serious shortfall.

“We are currently operating with primarily the same group of paramedics we did 10-15 years ago,” said Kerry Klear, who has been a paramedic with the St. Mary’s County ALS unit since 1983 and held the post of the chief of Leonardtown Volunteer Rescue Squad for six years. “We have seen many come and go, but few have stayed.”

Klear said burnout was taking its toll on paramedics in the county. “How many of you out there put in 40-50 hour work week and then volunteer an additional 20 plus hours a week doing the same thing?” Klear asked.

He said at present the current paramedics were tired and could no longer keep up with the demand county growth has caused. “To run a shift and then be expected to perform at work the next day or evening is nearly impossible,” he said.

Elizabeth Carroll, president of St. Mary’s County ALS Unit, said the ALS providers had been trying to optimize resources by using a car chase system, in which a paramedic responds with ALS equipment in a car and meets the ambulance at emergency sites. “However, in the last few years, it has become impossible to cover all the calls,” she said.

Carroll said when a paramedic runs eight to 12 calls in a 12-hpur shift and then spend additional hours completing paperwork for those calls, burnout happened very quickly. “those medics that run all night long with little or no sleep and then have to go to work the next day run the very risk of harming themselves, or the very people they are trying to help,” she said.

She called for implementing solutions on a war-footing, and warned that if that was not done the county would find itself sorely lacking in meeting the needs of the citizens. “We are teetering on the brink of the situation right now,” Carroll said.

She said for the first time this year the ALS providers requested funds for one paid paramedic crew to help reduce the call per medic ratio and meet the call demand. She regretted that the commissioners had cut those funds from the preliminary budget. “If you do not want us to hire a paid crew, then you will need to fund measures to attract more paramedics to St. Mary’s county,” Carroll requested of the county commissioners.

She urged the county to offer health and life insurance plans to volunteer paramedics, provide funding for uniform shirts, jacket and boots, provide funding for decent furniture in the unit’s living and sleeping quarters and provide an allowance for meals while the volunteers are on duty, and attract experienced paramedics from other counties by transferring up to 10 years of service.

“When someone needs advanced care, we want to be there to provide it. Right now, we cannot always do that,” Carroll said.

Carroll asked the county higher ups what if their spouse, mother or father, or child would need help but ALS would fail in doing so.

Michael Barnett, who has been in the filed work since 1989 that the goal of “No Medic Available” less than five percent of the time has gone unmet for the last eight months in St. Mary’s. “In 2003, the number of calls increased 12.5 percent from approximately 3500 calls to approximately 4,000 calls. This number has increased to 4200 calls this year,” Barnett said.

On the other hand, Barnett said the average number of ALS providers dropped from 47 in 2003 to 37 at this time.

He said For the ALS unit to attain its goal of ‘No Medic Available’ less than five percent of the time, St. Mary’s County immediately needed a minimum of 15 new volunteer ALS providers. “We expect to turn over two ALS providers in the near future, but that is far from the number required to meet minimum manning,” Barnett said.