It’s great to see this feel-good article about Milwaukee firefighters growing more reliant on medical responses. It casts a positive light on the work EMS providers do, day in and day out.
But when you look closer, there are several areas of concern that point to overworked responders and the need for management changes.
For instance, 4,801 calls for service annually translates to about 14 calls per shift. If you assume it takes about 70 minutes to clear a call in an urban system and return to quarters, that’s about 16 hours of being in service.
Even if it was a mere 60 minutes per run, that’s still 14 hours. And that’s just for EMS calls. Add in daily activities surrounding the fire station, and that means the medics are up for most of their shift. We know that’s not healthy, either mentally or physically.
In 2013, 60,500 of the department’s total 73,632 runs were for medical events. That’s about 82 percent of the call volume. Yet with 12 ambulances, the department uses 19 percent of its rolling fleet for transport.
I’m not suggesting that the Milwaukee Fire Department is doing anything out of the ordinary. In fact, this is very much the norm throughout the industry.
Structure fires are down; EMS calls are up. It’s time for the fire service to look at fundamental changes in the way it manages its infrastructure in response to a changing work environment.
There are departments in the nation that have been moving in that direction for some time, and it hasn’t been easy. Cultural inertia ─ i.e. traditions ─ is a major barrier to progress.
But given that the community’s needs have evolved over time, it clearly makes sense to respond in a wise, proactive way to provide security and protection.
