Oakland Township Fire Department is Understaffed

Bob Yager

It is my personal opinion, after discussions with the Oakland Township Fire Department since early 2014, that if residents understood how it is currently staffed and operated you would support and perhaps demand the hiring of 6 more full-time Paramedic/Firefighters so we can have a prompt, adequate, safe responses to medical emergencies, fires, auto accidents and other emergencies.

I will present my arguments in a series of articles over the coming weeks. Besides putting ourselves in danger, we are asking our Paramedic / Firefighters to do their jobs in a way that is too dangerous to them.

EMS

Let’s take a look at our Emergency Medical Service (EMS). Our Fire Department is licensed by Oakland County Medical Control Authority (OCMCA) as an ALS (Advanced Life Support) service. Think of this as bringing the emergency room to your house. The basic legal requirements to be licensed are:

  1. A properly stocked ambulance (drugs, EKG, surgical equipment for inserting breathing tubes, etc.)
  2. Two Paramedics or one Paramedic and one Emergency Medical Technician at all times on the ambulance
  3. Arrive on scene within 6 minutes of being notified by dispatch (8 minutes if you think our population is below 500 per square mile or 18,400 people.)
  4. Follow all OCMCA patient treatment protocols exactly
  5. Have an EMS coordinator for training and item #6 below.
  6. Review every response for compliance to patient treatment protocols

Our EMS /ALS service meets requirements 1 4, 5, 6; but fails to meet 2 and 3.

  1. We have two properly equipped and stocked ALS ambulances, A-1 at Station #1 on Collins Rd. and A-2 at Station #2 on Rochester Rd.
  2. We have only one person on the ambulance enroute to your medical emergency. This driver / Paramedic is unsafely multitasking. She is navigating, working the siren, looking for traffic, communicating with dispatch and possibly Crittenton Hospital and planning what to do for the patient on arrival. There should be a second person on this ambulance.
  3. We get the two paramedics or one paramedic and one EMT on scene in 11.5 minutes, 5.5 minutes late, according to data collected between 10/1/15 and 5/31/16.

An ambulance leaves the fire station with one paramedic on board. He or she hopes to meet up with another paramedic or EMT at the scene – either a Paid-on-Call (who is not “on call”, but volunteers to respond if they can) or the second ALS ambulance from the other station. Except during the daytime, each station is manned by a single person. It takes 6 people to place one person in two stations 24/7. During the day the Chief and EMS Coordinator are also at Station #2.

  1. I am confident, after numerous discussions that our Paramedic / Firefighters deeply care about people and spend a lot of time studying and practicing Oakland County patient treatment protocols to make sure they are prepared. Recently they cut open a neck to insert a breathing tube to save a gunshot victim. This is far beyond first aid.
  2. We have an EMS Coordinator.
  3. The EMS coordinator leads these reviews.

 

FIRES

 

For fires, our Paramedic / Firefighters must go into the structure to rescue people or to put out the fire and prevent a total loss of property. Two firefighters go in the burning structure as a team. Two firefighters must be outside ready to rescue them if needed. One more person needs to be outside and in command. This is the bare minimum.  Fifteen people are needed if the fire is to be extinguished.

Generally accepted standards set by the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA)              are:

  1. Four firefighters on scene in 4 minutes 90% of the time.
  2. Fifteen firefighters on scene in 9 minutes, 90% of the time.
  3. 80 additional seconds are allowed receive the call, suit up, and get on the truck.

I am unaware of any data on our degree of conformance to these standards. But with our one man per station, it is extremely unlikely that we comply.

 

AUTO ACCIDENTS

These require often multiple ambulances, at least one fire truck, and an emergency gear truck with jaws-of-life, etc. Two people can bring two of four needed vehicles, the rest depends on volunteer response and mutual aid from other communities.

 

DATA

We have suggested to Chief Strelchuk that there should be a monthly review of fire department data showing compliance or lack thereof and issues and plans. So far there has been no positive response to this suggestion.

 

FUTURE ARTICLES

We will provide future articles with more detail based on questions from readers.

Bob Yager

11-28-2017

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