IAFF vs CUPE
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is none too happy with the Ontario Professional Firefighters Association’s move to begin providing fire-based EMS first response.
According to the CBC, Jeff Van Pelt, chair of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents more than 6,000 paramedics in Ontario, said, “The move “is like playing Russian roulette with the public.”
“Russian Roulette”, You Say?
That’s what they said twenty years ago regarding the debate to place automated external defibrillators (AED) at public access points for instant use.
Rather than so-called “Russian Roulette” the exact opposite has occurred, lives have been saved.
One needn’t go back 20 years, though.
The most recent example of pushing medical intervention out to enhance response and save lives is the deployment of naloxone to law enforcement for rapid opioid overdose intervention.
Ancient and Organized Labor
The CUPE position on EMS first response harkens back to 19th-century cobblers protesting the rise of shoe factories.
It all came down to price then and here it simply comes down to response times.
Society has bought into the idea that life-saving medical intervention which can be delivered with little risk, especially given the outcome of no intervention, should be as widely available as possible.
Early medical intervention through the managed response of fire companies is efficient and effective.
Encroachment?
If the real CUPE concern is that firefighters are making this initial foray in order to eventually take over paramedic treatment and transport, it seems there should be little concern over that.
Why?
Good luck finding firefighters who want to engage in patient transport.
It’s hard enough to find ones who want to be fire-based paramedics.
The culinary equivalent of being able to skip patient transport is having someone else do the dishes after the big meal was cooked and eaten.
Forty years of fire-based EMS pre-hospital care proves that a properly managed and trained team both saves lives and improves patient outcomes.
CUPE should be developing a forward-focused and cooperative strategy with the IAFF.
