Ontario paramedics concerned over proposal permitting firefighters to administer treatment

A recent proposal to allow Ontario firefighters to give patients medical treatment has the province's paramedics seeing red.

Under 2-year pilot project, firefighters would be trained to give 5 drugs to patients

The Canadian Press Posted: Aug 12, 2015 12:06 PM EDT | Last Updated: August 12, 2015

Ontario paramedics are upset about a pilot project that would involve firefighters learning how to give patients drugs before paramedics arrive on the scene. (CBC File Photo)

A recent proposal to allow Ontario firefighters to givepatients medical treatment has the province's paramedics seeing red.

The Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association is proposing atwo-year pilot project in eight cities that would see firefightersget trained to administer five drugs to relieve symptoms like chestpain and shortness of breath.

The province's Liberal government says it is reviewing theproposal and is in the process of making a decision based on thebest available evidence.

The paramedics' union says it will be targeting leaders ofcommunities that would be subjects of the pilot project at theannual conference of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario inNiagara Falls next week.

The pilot project would involve firefighters, some of whom arealready trained as paramedics, taking a 20-hour training course togive patients drugs before paramedics arrive on scene.

Chris Day, the vice-chairman of CUPE's ambulance committee, saysparamedics have "grave concerns" about patient safety andfirefighters ability to diagnose patients and administer medicationwith such little training.

"You need to know a lot more about what's going on than just agentleman or a lady saying to you, 'I have chest pain,"' he said."To be able to do a proper assessment and then go through theprocess of setting up before actually administering any kind ofmedication ... we would be on scene long before then and we would be

taking over patient care."

Decreasing calls

He said the union feels it is an effort for firefighters to dealwith decreasing call volumes and to keep their jobs.

The fire association's president Carmen Santoro said he'sfrustrated that no one seems to be accepting the proposal, and thata similar model has successfully been in place in the U.S. for morethan three decades.

He said it's not about taking over the paramedics, but thatfirefighters usually respond to emergency situations in the firstcrucial minutes that can mean life or death for patients.

"This is not a turf war because we're not looking to take overparamedics, we're not looking to add staff, this is about using whatwe already have," Santoro said.

"We're not saying we're going to be paramedics after 20 hours,all we're saying is after 20 hours we'll be able to administer thosefive simple drugs."

Firefighters in Ontario can currently administer oxygen, takevital signs, and about 42 per cent can use EpiPens.

Santoro said that he believes that there is a lot offear-mongering going on, which is something he has seen before.

"When we first had defibrillators, the talk was, we were goingto kill people," he said.Well, you know what, we didn't kill people, we saved a lot oflives."

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