MAD HATTER

MEMO - RE: FIRE HALL NUMBER

I would like to offer my support to the position taken by Geraldine Murphy
in her recent submissions to the Mad Hatter. As the Faculty Association
representative to the Health and Safety Committee I have spent many hours
over the past year and a half arguing the merits of adopting the ambulance
number as our external emergency number, and Geraldine's continued articu-
lation of her view predates by at least a year my involvement with the issue.
In fact, the Health and Safety Committee was swayed by these discussions
and by the documentation provided by Geraldine, and voted in January of
1986 to recommend adoption of the ambulance number. The rationale was based
on the following:

Proximity of physical location should play no part in the decision as
to which number to adopt. The tiered emergency response (described by
Gerladine in her December Ist submission) obviates the need to directly
inform the fire hall. Besides which, the concern should be for the level
of medical service which is provided, not which vehicle can arrive more
quickly. The inhalator crew (Fire Department) possess Industrial First
Aid (IFA) certificates (Level A) and no further training. This is the
same level to which the College's first aid attendants are trained. The
Ambulance team possess I.F.A. certificates as a prerequisite to their
training, which prepares them to various levels of paramedical skill
(Emergency Medical Assistant to Advanced Life Support ). The New England
Journal of Medicine reports that early deaths from heart attack can often
be prevented by administration of lidocaine injections by ambulance
paramedics. The researchers estimate that on-scene administration of
this drug could lower the pre-hospital death rate for heart attack victims
by 30%. Granted, the incidence of heart attacks at the College can be
expected to be quite low, but I cannot see the justification for risking
even one life.

Secondly, the Provincial Ambulance Service is widely regarded as the
“medical expert". (As far as I know, it has no plans to expand its
services to firefighting.) The dispatching of an ambulance and appropriate
paramedical team is based on information given over the phone to a person
trained in discerning critical medical information. If the Fire Hall
dispatcher must relay medical information to the Ambulance dispatcher
the result is second-hand information, and the wasting of precious time

 

Thirdly, the use of the Ambulance number is widely accepted and recom-
mended by various provincial and national bodies concerned with health
issues. The Fire Service at the provincial level supports the teaching
of the ambulance number for universal use.

Finally, the committee viewed it as contradictory to adopt a practice
other than that which we recommend to students through College-sponsored
CPR and First Aid courses.

Geraldine's question is pertinent: Why is the College insisting on the
Fire Hall number?

CONNIE BROATCH

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