I am extremely disappointed in the report put out by this Grand Jury. I feel they did not do due diligence. Did they interview our two East County supervisors, or the past acting fire chief? I think not. If they had, they would not have made the recommendations they suggested.
The background is that this fire district investigated the idea of switching to Cal Fire during a year of open public meetings. The outcome was very clear that the figures did not justify switching from local control to a state agency.
The report talks about the district as being adequate, by whose standards? The only reason we have not had a loss of life with a fire is because of the outstanding job our firefighters have done with less than adequate numbers and equipment. The jury must know or should know that the majority of calls are medical. As one of the older population I would love to see on the engine the third firefighter, who would have emergency medical training. We are a long way to a hospital.
Prop 13 played a huge role in the lack of funds for our fire district. I do not blame Prop 13; the population and firefighting was vastly different. We had mostly volunteer fire stations and the population has exploded in the last 30 years. What was a fair division or monies then is no longer a working budget; however, the laws are such that the money is what it is and cannot be re-divided.
The reality without the parcel tax: we will be very inadequate, equipment will need replacing and no one can say our firefighters are paid at fair market value. Go back to the drawing board, Grand Jury. You got it wrong.
Olga Jones, Bethel Island
By the displayed comments on here I am convinced you know exactly what you are talking about. You are credible and explanatory. Bob on the other hand is trying to impress people rather than educate them with his comments. As I have been told and experienced myself, take anything Bob says with a grain of salt.
It would be an honor to meet you Mr. Consveer. It is quite apparent you are a highly educated person.
Thank you for participating on an intellectual, factual, and credible basis here. Most of us have been chummed to the gutter responses. I respect you have not taken that bait Bob tosses out.
I do not think it's appropriate to announce Olga's history. You should allow her privacy and respect. If she wanted to share that she would have.
I know we all have deep friction about passionate points but I think you stepped over that line. Say all you want about me but don't use her public service for your own personal gain.
As a foreperson for the GJ in 2006-2007 Ms. Jones' name is prominent as the contact person for all reports issued during her tenure. In other words, not exactly a family secret. She is to be commended for volunteering her time and in a lead role no less.
http://www.cc-courts.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=4271
Sometimes you try too hard looking for arguments.
Gavin is correct. Your coverage on Bethel Island will not get any better but rather worse if the QRV goes away. Why? Because by adding one paramedic on an engine (limits it response to medicals if they are on another call) you lose an emergency vehicle ( QRV ) separate from the engine staffed with a paramedic.
You will reduce your life saving options.
This could change if the Station at that is supposed to be built ( no charge by the developer ) on Bethel Island Road and Cypress ever is completed. At that time you would have immediate access to two possible paramedics on engines. This is why I think the paramedic part of the tax should be used to increase firefighter staff first. In five years when the tax has an extra $11.8 million in projected funds should the transition to paramedics added take place.
That means statistically that your claim of a Paramedic not being in station is extremely low. You and "Gavin" both omit that fact that engine based Paramedics have lower average response times and they will not be taking the place of ambulance based Paramedics supplied through AMR under any possible scenario.
As has been stated here before, the incremental cost add to the proposed tax amounts to about 3 cents per day per parcel to gain 7 faster responding engine based Paramedics versus the 3 QRV based ones we have now. In other words, we're not talking a huge difference between having and not having the Paramedic upgrade as part of the $197 proposal.
I believe Olga is a past Grand Jury member. In fact I'm told she was a foreperson. So I'm reasonably comfortable that she probably has a better read on the situation in Bethel Island than either you or I.
Finally, I hope you are not under the illusion that a new Cypress station is simply added to the existing locations outright. No meeting I have sat in on has suggested anything of the sort. In fact, in the face of scarce resources it's more likely that some consolidation of the BI-Knightsen-Cypress triangle of station locations would take place. Otherwise you have resources tilted and placed in sparcely populated areas. From an operational standpoint it would make no sense.
But that discussion is for far down the road and we should remain focused on more pressing issues.
I just want to make sure you know that living in Bethel Island you already have pretty darn good emergency medical service (EMS) response, and in fact it could be argued that right now it is better then if a paramedic was added on the fire engine.
Just to educate in case you didn't know, you have had qualified seasoned paramedics responding to EMS calls out here for a long time. Every EMS call has an ambulance dispatched to it *in addition* to the fire engine, and the ambulance is separate, not provided by the fire department and not dependent on this tax. Every single ambulance has at least one paramedic and one emergency medical technician basic on it, and quite a few ambulances in east county have two paramedics. Also, to supplement this you have a dedicated first responder paramedic stationed 24/7/365 in Bethel Island, known as a QRV (Quick Response Vehicle). This paramedic is stationed right there on the island with you and reserved for EMS calls, unlike if the fire department replaces the QRV with a paramedic on their fire engine (if they are fighting a grass fire and you need a paramedic they'll be busy at the fire).
Please don't be scared into thinking you need this tax for EMS response. If you want to vote for it because of other opinions you have that is your decision, but to vote for it because you think it's the only way you'll have adequate EMS response is just not true.
As for future comments you are of course free to say whatever you want, but it would be nice if your comments actually contained something of value in them. Just trying to discredit someone with a sly remark without providing any true constructive argument doesn't do much for you. What it does for me is further proves that I have valid points, so valid that you are unable to argue them and you just resort to your above comment in defense.
Statistically speaking, the average QRV response time in the District is substantially higher than the average engine response time. This is fact.
I'm not sure how you can assert that fewer, slower responding units are better than the proposed 7 engine based Paramedic proposal on the table.
Can you tell me how much money any East County fire agency has ever asked for or received over and above what's locked in for them through Prop 13 formulas? You presented a statement to suggest this is a repetitive event in this District, which it is not.
You are correct that a QRV cannot handle all medical calls on their own, however a QRV could handle the majority of medical calls on their own prior to ambulance arrival (not every call is a critical medical or trauma, in fact most are not). As for the calls that need extra hands, per research and studies done elsewhere it is beginning to be discovered that multiple paramedics on scene and in an EMS system in general is actually a detriment. It may be hard to explain the details on a forum such as this, but throwing more and more paramedics into an EMS system does not make it better and is not the answer. Among other things it actually causes a dilution in the skill set of said paramedics working in the system (I could go more into it and give specifics if you'd like).
As for QRV versus engine response time, I am curious where you are getting your numbers from as I would like to review them to see what this "substantially higher" number is, and if you are factoring in that we have twice the number of fire engines as QRV's. If you are then, duh! Of course engines will get to some calls faster, you have 6 versus 3. Doesn't mean putting a paramedic on every one of them is a smart answer and according to medicine, statistically may not even make any difference in long term survival (your most critical patients will be saved with basic life support -BLS- care, which the fire department already provides).
For the last part let me restate myself; I have said it before and I'll say it again, I am sick of the scare tactics that fire departments (in general) use. There, I left the part about the money out, is that better?
As I mentioned, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions and when it comes down to it can vote however they want. I am just sharing the knowledge I have from my personal experiences that as far EMS coverage goes, east county is well taken care of and does have adequate paramedic coverage and response regardless of this taxes outcome. If you want to disagree then you can, but I ask what expertise you have? Have you ever worked for or in an EMS system? Are you up to date and do you follow closely evidence based medicine research on the most effective management of EMS systems including achieving the highest rate of long term survival possible for patients? I can say yes.
Months ago in another thread you actually came out and suggested that’s no big deal if we lose 3 stations. But when asked how you came to that conclusion, you ignored the question. Actually you’ve ignored several key ones including are you a registered voter in this district?
It’s now clear you’re protecting turf as indicated in your latest post.
Captain Gil Guerrero laid out an excellent scenario at the last ECCFPD Board meeting. If you had you been there you could have heard it yourself, but for inexplicable reasons you don’t attend meetings held right in your home town on this issue you act so passionate about. That’s assuming the home town you listed is accurate.
Response time information is available through the Chief for the engines and online through the required monthly performance reports posted for AMR.
Frankly I’m not impressed with the resume you outline when you take such a flippant approach to ALS response times for the first few minutes of the golden hour. Recall earlier that John had your back in a scenario where the engine is unavailable and the first unit on scene would be AMR. Now you’re saying the extra 2-3 minutes of added response time from AMR is no biggie for a person not breathing or in full cardiac arrest. The baby boomer population is nearing retirement age and the need for medical calls will be going up. Not good timing for your sit tight, I’ll get there when I can plan.
I hope you limit your activities to online and never get into any key decision making slots with that approach.
If you want the ambulance on scene faster that's great, but unfortunately that is a decision that rests with our county board of supervisors when they make up the next 911 ambulance contract. The current ambulance provider seems to be doing a fine job of making their compliance requirements (http://www.cchealth.org/groups/ems/amr.php) but if you do feel the requirement they are held to is not good enough then yes, that is an issue to take up with them (the board).
On that note, I find it a little funny that your rebuttal includes "the golden hour" as an argument. For your information the golden hour refers specifically to severe traumatic injuries. It refers to the fact that from the time the traumatic injury occurs the goal is to have that patient in operating room getting surgery within an hour. The phrase and goal exist because in these patients no amount of prehospital care is going to make a difference in their longterm survival, the fix is rapid surgical intervention. Anything done in the field that does buy a patient time till they get to the hospital that makes a difference should be BLS care. As you know the fire department doesn't transport, the ambulance does, so tell me how placing paramedics on fire engines will have any improvement on "the golden hour".
Looking at the monthly ambulance provider compliance reports on the Contra Costa EMS websites I can't find anywhere they actually list actual response time to calls or even what the average response time is in minutes and seconds. How exactly did you get that? If I call the Chief will he send me a list of calls with the response times that the fire department responds to? I suppose even if he did I still need the QRV response times to compare to individual calls and I don't know how I could get that specific of information.
I am still curious what "substantially higher" is exactly.
By the displayed comments on here I am convinced you know exactly what you are talking about. You are credible and explanatory. Bob on the other hand is trying to impress people rather than educate them with his comments. As I have been told and experienced myself, take anything Bob says with a grain of salt.
It would be an honor to meet you Mr. Consveer. It is quite apparent you are a highly educated person.
Thank you for participating on an intellectual, factual, and credible basis here. Most of us have been chummed to the gutter responses. I respect you have not taken that bait Bob tosses out.