chicagoareafire.com

9 Comments

• #1 by Bill Post on March 12, 2017 - 12:05 AM

  

  Perhaps some of you missed this post a few days ago on this site which featured an article which essentially points out that there is a paramedic shortage on the Chicago fire department. The fire department had an agreement with the Firefighters Union to form a committee to help decide to where to put at least 5 additional ambulances in service which was never done and then I pointed out in my comment that just John is saying that there also are some gaps in ALS fire company coverage. When the ALS company program was begun in 1997 the goal was to have all of the Engine companies and at least some of the Trucks to eventually be ALS equipped. Until a few years that fire department had been adding more ALS Engine and Truck companies to the fleet at a rate of about 3 every year or two but it ‘s been at least 3 or 4 years since the last Engines were converted to ALS Engines or Trucks. Currently slightly over half of the Engine companies are ALS equipped and there are also 12 ALS Truck companies that are in service however there are still a number of fire stations that don’t have any ALS Engine or Truck companies that are assigned to them. Fifty eight of Chicago’s 96 Land based Engine companies are ALS equipped. That means that for there are still 38 more Engines that need to be converted to ALS for all of the Engines to be so equipped. That isn’t being realistic however due to the paramedic shortage. As some stations have an ALS Truck assigned to them instead of an ALS Engine not all of the Engines really need to be converted. The idea is just to have one ALS company assigned to each station which doesn’t include the ambulance. Currently the double company stations that don’t have an ALS company assigned are Engines 14,35,42,86,89,106,112,15,28,45,63,65 80 and 104 and those are just double company stations. The single engine stations that aren’t ALS equipped are Engines 16,22,99,103,107,56,69,94,75,81 and Truck 24.
  Due to the fact that some firefigher /paramedics are not renewing their licenses Chicago is lucky to being keeping their current ALS companies as ALS companies. The priority as of right now should be to get those 5 additional ambulances in service.
  http://chicagoareafire.com/blog/2017/03/chicago-fire-department-news-47/

  • #2 by John Antkowski on March 12, 2017 - 8:34 AM

    

    Bill, Thank you so much for the statistics. I didn’t know how bad the situation was. In Milwaukee my Department Firefighter/Meds receive 5%preminun for being a Paramedic. It’s not Pensionable but it’s something. I hope they can find a fix to the problem. Nothing worse then a burned out crabby Med. Take care John

    • #3 by Marty Coyne on March 12, 2017 - 10:09 AM

      

      The problem in Chicago is there’s a big shortage of single role medics so the FF/PM were being mandatory detailed to the ambos daily. They didn’t like that so many dropped their certification to avoid it. The extra money wasn’t enough to deal with the hassle.

      • #4 by John Antkowski on March 13, 2017 - 1:03 PM

        

        That’s terrible I don’t understand why Paramedics are so wrongfully treated like unwanted step children of the bigger professional Fire Departments. I wish there was a solution. All I know that the disharmony within the departments trickles down to Patient care and that’s the biggest tragedy. We can’t keep FF/Meds happy either. But Milwaukee has been hiring young kids out of high school. They are trained as paramedics first than they assigned to the fire academy. We have cross staffed firehouses. The program has good intentions but it’s also not working. The new Firefighters spend more time on the box than on fire apparatus that their firefighting skills are suffering. I wish there was an answer. John

• #5 by Chuck on March 11, 2017 - 9:20 PM

  

  Really? REALLY? City’s done some dumb stuff lately, but whatever idiot thought this up needs a slap.

  • #6 by John Antkowski on March 11, 2017 - 9:47 PM

    

    Chuck I still don’t get it? With all the violence happening in the city you think that the Fire Department would get a green to trying to upgrade most of the rigs to ALS equipped to help out the Ambulance Division. Who’s in need of more staff also. Thanks John

• #7 by LT501 on March 11, 2017 - 7:49 PM

  

  John, I believe CFD refers to their fire boats as “marine engines”, so upgrading the newest (E2) to ALS makes good sense. Now they can initiate ALS care on any boat out on Lake, instead of waiting for it to return and dock.

  • #8 by John Antkowski on March 11, 2017 - 8:24 PM

    

    Thanks, LT501 but couldn’t ALS care be needed elsewhere where in the city? Thank you for your comment.

• #9 by John Antkowski on March 11, 2017 - 2:56 PM

  

  I thought Engine 2 was the Fireboat? Please clarify. Thank you John

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