By Tatiana Prophet
Daily Press - Victorville, California
Copyright 2007 Daily Press
From The Associated Press
VICTORVILLE, Calif. — An older woman who lives near Fire Station 314 calls 9-1-1 every time she needs to go the doctor.
“She absolutely refuses to call a taxi,” said Marty Brown, president of the local firefighter’s association.
While many calls for medical aid are legitimate, there is currently no differentiation between a cut finger and a stroke. Most fire departments around the country respond to all medical calls in the same way: fire engine plus ambulance, going full speed.
“You only have to look at that for so long to realize it’s not a wise use of our resources,” said Mat Fratus, deputy chief of the city of San Bernardino Fire Department.
As Victorville officials consider a proposal to put paramedics on fire engines, they are looking to San Bernardino -- the first city to filter out calls at the dispatch level -- for ways to save resources.
San Bernardino, which began the program in 2001, trains dispatchers to not only take callers through medical emergencies, but to determine whether a fire engine is needed at all.
“Everyone still gets a response,” Fratus said. “We don’t ever just not show up.”
With the number of medical aid calls increasing by double digits from 1998 to 2005, the city had to do something.
“The only way to deal with that is to add more resources to the system,” Fratus said.
The emergency medical dispatch system “at least deferred the cost of having to add more units by increasing the effectiveness of the way we respond,” he said.
In Victorville, medical aid calls made up 73 percent of the calls in 2005.
In San Bernardino, Fratus said, 20 percent to 25 percent of all medical aid calls did not need a fire engine response.