ANALYSIS/OPINION:
“Both our people and equipment are overwhelmed on a daily basis.”
Those words were recently strung together by D.C. Fire and EMS Chief Gregory Dean, and when such an official uses words as dire as those in his testimony, for the record, they spell one word: C-R-I-S-I-S.
Residents, commuters, tourists and other stakeholders know that homicides and violence, substance abuse and large functions like sporting and music events, rallies and demonstrations, and visits by dignitaries such as the pope can strain resources. Indeed, people around the globe watched as D.C. ambulance crews rolled among the public safety vehicles escorting Pope Francis around town.
But even Nats games and extraordinary occasions like papal visits don’t present a problem.
The problem stems from what’s deemed as “low priority” calls, the chief said. Someone with “leg cramps.” Someone with “throat pain.” Someone with “stomach pain.” Someone with a “foot” injury. Someone with “pain from a previous injury.”
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Those and similar complaints of aches and pains are being phoned into the 911 emergency center every day, and they will cripple FEMS if officials do not act soon.
Chief Dean — i.e., the Muriel Bowser administration — is proposing using private ambulance contractors to handle low priority services, and the D.C. Council is scheduled Tuesday to hold a first reading of and a vote on the Emergency Medical Services Contract Authority Temporary Amendment Act of 2015.
Not all details have been revealed, so not everyone is on board.
Edward Smith, president of the D.C. firefighters union, doesn’t appear to be in stark opposition at this juncture. He has said FEMS’ 2,000 firefighters acknowledge the need for additional help until the city gets its act together. So it’s good to know the firefighters are onboard, at least in the short term.
Aretha Lyles, head of the union that represents the civilian paramedics and emergency medical technicians, doesn’t like the privatization idea. Ms. Lyles said she and her 165 members suspect privatization means D.C. would be dispatching dollars to outside firms, arguing that D.C. should be increasing the number of FEMS personnel. Ms. Lyles also reportedly complained that city residents expect FEMS to respond to their 911 calls, not a private firm.
Lawmakers should not allow that complaint to cloud their judgment on Tuesday. Their call is to provide two solutions, one in the short term and one for the long term. In the short, privatization appears to be the way to go.
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Even if council members are so inclined, getting into the weeds could prove counterproductive. Response times are crucial in life-and-death situations. A paper cut or sore toe from an ingrown nail is not. (Get off your aching toe, and call a taxi or Uber.) Immediate response to a choking child is a life-and-death situation, but sending firefighters to a call for “stomach pain” might or might not be. The dispatchers answering the 911 calls must be prepared and trained to discern the differences.
And while FEMS officials are walking the dispatch track, council members and city officials can concede another problem: Ordinary people in D.C. have the impression that the city will take care of them no matter the issue. Solving that problem calls for the re-education of city authorities as well as the rank and file, and a re-education of the public, which clearly needs to be told that public safety don’t cost you nothin’.
Pointing this out hardly suggests raising the fees of FEMS services, but broadly publicizing the costs of each FEMS transport and comparing them to, say, a handful of other major cities, could prove helpful to those people who expect a free ride (and perhaps get a bill instead).
Since the legislation being aired Tuesday is temporary, the council should have measuring sticks in place by the second quarter of the new fiscal year, when the public gets a good idea of whether the city has ginned up a surplus for the umpteenth time. The measuring sticks should be used to gauge the Bowser administration’s implementation of the FEMS privatization program and the private firms’ execution of that program and the laws of the District of Columbia.
Look, the FEMS crisis cited by Chief Dean did not begin this year. The death of Cecil Mills, 77, outside a firehouse in January 2014 served as a stark cautionary flag, and the wrong addresses, delayed responses and other deaths that have occurred since mean that yellow flag is now red.
In a high-crime city that also has serves as nation’s capital, D.C. FEMS has a lot to contend with and always has, and even with overwhelming odds our first responders are an agency to be mighty proud of.
Still, when the chief says “our people and equipment are overwhelmed on a daily basis” effective and efficient policy solutions must be agreed upon and implemented soon rather than later.
Again, people problem + equipment problem = crisis.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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