From Men’s Health
“The phenomenon of ‘no ambulances available’ is becoming more and more common throughout the country,” says Dr. Bryan Bledsoe. Bledsoe should know. He’s adjunct professor of emergency medicine at the University of Nevada school of medicine and wrote the textbooks that are used by many jurisdictions to develop paramedic systems. He understands the issues facing the industry. He says emergency response times are growing because of government’s simple neglect, and because emergency medical response is a mismatched collection of city and county agencies, private companies, sometimes even volunteers, and they are all not fully prepared for their everyday responsibilities, let alone a serious catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina.
“Some rural areas are really on their own,” Dr. Bledsoe says. “And nobody thinks about it until they have to call for help.” In December 2007, EMS Magazine conducted a national survey and found just about every state is short on paramedics and EMTs — some critically. Economic pressures are causing cities and counties to reduce services. Emergency responders are fewer and farther apart.
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