Support Those Who Help You!
Your Emergency Services Are Being Threatened By Budget Cuts
In July, four men met for a round of golf on the sunlit rolling hills of a local golf club. On that day, one of those men suffered a massive heart attack and his heart stopped beating. Acting quickly, his golf buddies called the 911 center and a bystander rushed over to help. The New Castle County Emergency Dispatchers instructed the men on scene to provide Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) as they alerted the local emergency medical responders and the New Castle County Paramedics. The EMTs arrived and used their Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) to shock the man’s non-beating heart, bringing it back to life.
While rushing him to the hospital, the New Castle County Paramedics gave him intravenous medications to protect his heart, placed a breathing tube in his trachea to deliver oxygen directly to his lungs, and initiated a new cutting-edge, life-saving therapy to rapidly cool his body from the inside, minimizing damage to his heart and brain. As a result of the care delivered by the New Castle County Paramedics, the patient spent only moments in the Emergency Department and was able to be moved directly to surgery, maximizing his chances of survival. Today, he is out of the hospital and reunited with his family.
· Your New Castle County Paramedics, partnered with New Castle County’s 911 Call-Takers & Emergency Dispatchers, deliver quality emergency care that is amongst the top in the nation.
· Your County Paramedics routinely activate advanced heart, brain and trauma protocols, preserving the quality of life for thousands of patients, saving scores, even before they arrive at the hospital.
· Your County Paramedics give medications in the field that are usually reserved for the Emergency Room, empowering them to insert breathing tubes to restore breathing in the violently injured or severely ill.
· Paramedics in other major cities, are not trained to provide these interventions and can only hope that they reach a hospital in time to have an Emergency Room doctor save their patients.
Our Mission Is Your Life
In June of this year, the Governor's Delaware Emergency Medical Services Oversight Committee (DEMSOC) was celebrating the fact that death from traumatic injuries in Delaware had been reduced by nearly 25% over the last 10 years. In light of the every increasing number of trauma patients seen by emergency departments statewide, this was an astounding accomplishment. But it was realized through the cooperative efforts of injury prevention educators, pre-hospital emergency medical providers, emergency department staff, trauma surgeons and other clinical specialists. The results have prompted other areas of the country to look at the Delaware system as a model for providing excellence in trauma care.
Many of the elements that have helped to raise the bar for trauma care in Delaware also came together on a golf course that sunny day in July. Highly tuned systems, like the one currently in place in New Castle County, are a direct result of dedicated research, education, and skilled practice. Strong links in an evolving chain of survival have taken years to develop, nurture, and strengthen. It was this chain of survival that returned a man to his family, and it is this chain of survival, that is threatened by New Castle County’s budget cuts.
Our Mission Is Your Life
From the time 911 was called, until he reached the specialty heart hospital, this patient received advanced, high-quality care that people living in some of the largest urban areas of our Nation, only dream about. New Castle County’s enhanced 911 operation is a nationally accredited service that is able to quickly prioritize calls, direct the appropriate level of response to a crisis, and give guidance and life-saving instructions to panicked callers while emergency responders are on the way. Currently, the dispatch center is at critical staffing levels. There are no plans to hire or train more employees, and any further budget cuts could directly affect the time it takes to answer your 911 call.
For decades, New Castle County EMS has teamed with the American Heart Association to provide training on CPR to concerned citizens. Paramedics have trained thousands eager to learn this life-saving technique. In the 1990s, New Castle County EMS started encouraging the widespread distribution of AEDs and the training of everyday citizens to use them. These key first links in the chain of survival are no longer supported by your County government. The 2010 county budget has completely eliminated this program. This integrated system, expanded slowly but surely over decades to include trained medical responders working with New Castle County’s population at large—ordinary citizens, neighbors, co-workers—has been eliminated with the stroke of a pen.
Additionally, your New Castle County Paramedics are well below full staffing levels. No new paramedic trainees are being prepared to fill these positions, and there are no plans to start a new class in the paramedic education program. While the excellent care you have come to expect in New Castle County is not immediately at risk, the time it takes for paramedics to respond to your emergency will only get longer as the calls for service continue to increase and the number of paramedics on the street does not keep pace. This critical resource, once referred to as “the most intimate service the County provides to its citizens,” is already stretched beyond capacity and will soon be pushed to the breaking point. While police officers can be trained in 28 weeks, the training of paramedics takes two years. We are already behind the curve, and “catching up” isn’t on the horizon.
Our Mission Is Your Life
Our Local Union, representing the emergency services workers for New Castle County, has been portrayed as not able to agree with the County administration in order to save their jobs, and maintain the excellent care our citizen’s are accustomed to. This is woefully inaccurate.
Here are the facts;
· AFSCME Local 3911 requested that discussions aimed at relieving the county’s economic deficit be brought to the Collective Bargaining Table and be made part of our contract through fair and public negotiations
· Multiple attempts to enter negotiations over the past year have been long delayed by the county.
· Your New Castle County Emergency Service Providers have been working for you without a contract since April 1, 2008.
Your New Castle County Emergency Service Workers are proud to serve you. We are proud to be part of a Nationally Accredited organization and proud to provide the highest level of care.
Support Those Who Help You
Our Mission Is Your Life
www.3911.org
|
