Excerpts from Chicago.cbslocal.com:
On Tuesday night, a whistleblower exposed that a critical shortage of city ambulances has been made worse with the COVID-19 pandemic. Eighty ambulances serve Chicago every day. The paramedics often go from one violent crime scene to another.
“Our ambulances are out there,” said Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 spokesman Pat Quane. “They’re running nonstop, 24/7.”
“They’re doing trauma care – that’s battlefield care,” said Chicago Fire Department Paramedic Field Chief Pat Fitzmaurice. He said the department still does not have enough ambulances.
For years investigations found chronic concerns with ambulance response times, which he said is a result of the ambulance shortage. One analysis of 700,000 medical 911 calls found in 19 percent of them, it took an ambulance more than seven minutes to get to the scene. Illinois Department of Public Health records show the Chicago Fire Department has committed to a response time goal of six minutes.
Five new ambulances arrived in August 2018 – more than a year Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, “We know that we need more ambulances, and it’s my expectation, when we finalize the new fire contract, there will be more on ambulances coming online.”
The mayor made that comment in December of last year. But the number of new ambulances included in the firefighters’ new contract turned out to be zero.
In a statement, the fire department said they continue to ensure the ambulance fleet meets the needs of residents – which is why the placement of the most recently-added five ambulances was carefully chosen.
thanks Asher
#1 by Danny on November 24, 2020 - 9:50 AM
from all the reports you read Chicago has lagged behind in the number of ambulances per capita compared to similar population cities. one of the other CBS 2 stories last year showed the program that Rockford was using and couldn’t get an answer for the city on why he hasn’t looked into a program similar, basically and EMS fly car.
#2 by bill on November 22, 2020 - 8:27 AM
There is no shortage of ambulances just a surplus of free cheese eating folks who use the emergency room as a free aid clinic and the ambulance as an uber.
#3 by John Antkowski on November 20, 2020 - 6:38 PM
I believe that we have come to a crossroads in the fire service. Does fire based EMS still work? The system is on the brink of collapse. While most Major American cities cannot afford the rising costs. Not to mention the wear and tear of men and machines. For the most part, you have a engine or truck company responding along with an ambulance. That’s close to a quarter of million dollars including the apparatus and salaries of 6 to 7 people for calls for non life threatening emergencies!! Who pays? The taxpayers do time and time again. There are Some cities that only provide fire protection and sell off the EMS services to the lowest bidder. I know that the unions would lose membership but the reduction of cost would give the taxpayers a better product. Most true emergencies are for the elderly and victims of violence. The department would shrink but the service would be for fire protection only. Most transports are done due to protocols and once the crew makes patient contact and down grading in a court of law is patient abandonment. You really can’t triage someone probably by a phone call so somebody has to go respond. I don’t know if you are able to re educate. Too much money and effort has been put in. You tell me? John
#4 by Bill Post on November 19, 2020 - 9:04 AM
I saw the CBS report and there are a lot of unanswered questions.
How many calls are for non life threatening emergencies? Of the serious emergencies, how many need immediate transport to an emergency room? One of the reasons for having paramedics and ALS units is to be able to treat and stabilize the patient before transport unless it is a severe trauma that requires immediate transport. ALS companies have the ability to begin treatment before the arrival of an ambulance.
Of the non life threatening emergencies, how many actually require the services of a hospital emergency room? Could they more appropriately be handled at a doctor’s office or one of the many neighborhood emergency clinics? Also, how many of the non life threatening emergencies are actually called in by habitual users of the 911 system?
The CBS report also fails to mention or go into enough detail of the 6 minute response time goal. Is it strictly the travel time to the scene or does it include the turnout time and possibly the processing time as well which will add an extra minute to the response time?
I don’t know if the fire department still has these as standards or minimum goals, but they did have what was known as the 18 blocks dispatch rule. That essentially meant that if the nearest ALS ambulance was more then 18 blocks away, a fire company was also dispatched to the incident. They had a similar policy when the BLS ambulances were in service that a fire company would be dispatched if the nearest BLS ambulance was more then 4 miles away.
The bottom line is that Chicago has a good policy of seeing to it that emergency workers and initial treatment should be on the scene quickly in life threatening emergencies even if an ALS ambulance in not nearby or available.
One other thing is that Chicago is behind the times in handling the habitual callers. Several fire departments have low acuity units to deal with the habitual callers where the patient is examined and referred to a clinic, doctor, or a more appropriate treatment facility. Phoenix, Arizona also issues taxi vouchers to those same callers that are paid for by the city. They are much cheaper then an ALS ambulance ride to the hospital which is not always necessary. Yet another solution is to have private ambulances deal with the non life threatening emergencies.
Chicago always seems to take a long time finding some reasonable and cheaper common sense solutions. It’s about time for Chicago to start looking at what other cities are doing.
#5 by crabbymilton on November 19, 2020 - 7:07 AM
Yeah exactly. Hello 9-11, I have a hangnail and a runny nose…Too cheap to call a cab and take care of the small stuff themselves but rather jerk the whole system around.
#6 by Chuck on November 18, 2020 - 12:30 PM
Gee, CBS 2 – how about some new news for a change? You’ll never have enough ambulances when the City insists on sending one for every little piece of B.S. because the citizenry (the majority of whom don’t pay dime one,) know the proper words to say and get an ambulance sent every time to avoid getting sued.