Raise the Hammer

One of my brother's in law is a paramedic and has been one for almost 23 years. Yes, more of them are around because of PROVINCIAL REQUIREMENTS (not local requirements) for on time arrival. Most of the increase is due to a requirement that was passed down in 2002. At that time, many of the paramedic services in Ontario were in crisis, it didn't matter whether it was part of the provincial service or a municipal one, many operations were losing too many paramedics due to on the job stress. It was found that, there just wasn't enough of them anywhere. Double even triple shifts were becoming far too common and it didn't matter how much they were paid. So the province, very quietly, set up a program with the goal of tripling or quadrupling the number of available paramedic spaces, province wide. It is has taken almost 14 years but they got to almost double the number of paramedics they had in 2000. They are still having retention issues with paramedics, due to high levels of on the job stress and cases of PTSD, which are still increasing for paramedics. It had nothing to do with traffic calming or speed bumps why a person doesn't survive to make it to the hospital. As my brother in law will say, Its paramedic staffing issues, numbers and equipment issues that most often determine non medical related DOA deaths at hospitals.

There is one very stark and often a very sad reason people don't survive, if a person stops breathing as my brother in law often says, "you have 3-3.5 minutes before its really too late, not 5 minutes" (brain damage begins at this point). There is no road wide enough, fast enough that will get you to a patient's house or to a hospital on time to make a difference with that. This is under the assumption that, someone is around when the patient actually stops breathing and can even do anything about it. The time it takes to realize someone is not breathing and have that person calls 911, is often the main reason why someone survives or not. It has nothing to do with the road. Talk to my brother in law when you have a transporter from Star Trek, then you will have something that will save most but not all of the DOA's at hospitals.