{"id":67,"date":"2009-03-27T12:15:39","date_gmt":"2009-03-27T19:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/?p=67"},"modified":"2009-11-13T16:48:02","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T23:48:02","slug":"minifesto-quebec-prehospital-care-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/minifesto-quebec-prehospital-care-system\/","title":{"rendered":"A minifesto for the Quebec prehospital care system"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Hal Newman<\/div>\n
Our out-of-hospital \t\tcare system needs to be redesigned by people who are dedicated to the \t\tneeds of the end-users [I despise the words \u2018patient\u2019 or \u2018beneficiare\u2019 \t\tbecause \u2018patient\u2019 implies you must wait before receiving care and \t\t\u2018beneficiare\u2019 implies that healthcare is a benefit – and not a basic \t\tright] and the people who actually deliver the emergency care.<\/div>\n
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We need to stop \t\tlooking at prehospital care as a back-loaded system that starts when an \t\timaginary stopwatch is triggered after someone recognizes an emergency \t\thas occurred and calls 911. The problem with this model is that the \t\tclock will continually be reset once the person in need has received \t\ttreatment and has been delivered to the ER. No one is looking at ways to \t\tprevent the emergency in the first place.<\/p>\n

How many \t\thealthcare workers come to Quebec from other jurisdictions and are held \t\tin place while exams are written and scores are compiled? Why can\u2019t we \t\tcreate an EMS\/CLSC-linked organization that trains people to visit \t\tclients in their homes, verify that their environment is safe, check \t\tthat their meds are up-to-date, check their vital signs, even run an ECG \t\tor draw bloods to be checked at a local hospital?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be \t\teconomically and socially advantageous to have a first response team \t\tspecially trained to respond to calls of a lower priority to determine \t\twhether or not those clients actually need to be attended to by the much \t\tscarcer ambulance-based medics? I\u2019ll bet that could substantially reduce \t\tthe number of times the words \u201caucune ambulance disponible\u201d are \t\ttransmitted to waiting first responders.<\/p>\n

The firefighter \t\tfirst response program is performing beyond expectations. It needs to be \t\texpanded beyond the Island of Montreal and should encompass every part \t\tof this province. Firefighters who believe in the possibilities need to \t\tengaged as emissaries for this approach – they need to become part of a \t\tcore of leaders who can mentor other firefighters. I\u2019m tired of watching \t\tnaysayers rise to the top of the leadership ladders. Fire dept first \t\tresponse should be funded appropriately and cities and towns should \t\tstart realizing that this is an investment that assures tax payers of \t\tliving long and fruitful lives – and continuing to contribute to Quebec \t\tsociety.<\/p>\n

There should be \t\tautomatic external defibrillators [AEDs] in every public building and \t\tmany of the private ones. Police officers should be equipped with AEDs. \t\tCPR courses should be a requirement to graduate from elementary school.<\/p>\n

We should have \t\tadvanced life support [ALS] paramedics on every ambulance – and when \t\twe\u2019re done with the ambulance crews we ought to start looking at ALS \t\tfirefighter medics. We need to pay the ambulance medics a living wage \t\tthat recognizes the enormous contribution they make to our lives – and \t\tnot treat them as some afterthought to the system. Without them the \t\tcrippled system would have collapsed long ago. And we reward them by \t\ttreating them as second-class citizens and trying to find ways to refute \t\ttheir CSST claims after their backs and legs fail after decades on the \t\tjob.<\/p>\n

There should \t\tnever be a monopoly on saving lives or helping people in an \t\textraordinarily difficult moment of their lives. That damned clock \t\tbegins ticking when someone calls for help. The primary consideration \t\tshould be who can get there quickest to render aid – not which response \t\torganization has a \u2018claim\u2019 to the territory.<\/p>\n

Every EMS \t\torganization should take an enormous leap of faith forward, work with \t\tall of the stakeholders and establish a model that ensures everyone in \t\tthe community gets the emergency care they deserve.<\/p>\n

My family \t\tdeserves the best emergency medical system available. Doesn\u2019t yours?<\/p>\n

Suggestion: Talk \t\tto your MNA – your elected representatives and ask them why they believe \t\tyour family deserves anything less than the best possible prehospital \t\tcare. Our prehospital care system is nothing if not equitable in \t\tdelivering substandard services so it really doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re an \t\tMNA or not when you or someone you love place that call to 911.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Hal Newman Our out-of-hospital care system needs to be redesigned by people who are dedicated to the needs of the end-users [I despise the words \u2018patient\u2019 or \u2018beneficiare\u2019 because \u2018patient\u2019 implies you must wait before receiving care and \u2018beneficiare\u2019 implies that healthcare is a benefit – and not a basic right] and the people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[29,42,41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}