Editorial: Metro Louisville EMS encourages people to call 911

Published in the Louisville Courier Journal Feb. 22

We read with great interest the important and well-conceived piece (Feb. 3 Courier-Journal) regarding emergency medical care in our community. Clearly, the importance of obtaining appropriate medical care and knowing when to activate the 911 system in an emergency cannot be overemphasized. Along these lines, we would like to highlight a couple of critical points raised in the article.

With regard to activating 911, the article said, "If you feel it's an emergency and feel unable to get adequate care, an ambulance would be warranted." It is also suggested elsewhere in the piece that "It's always advisable to call your own physician first and to talk to whoever is on call on nights or weekends to get advice." From our perspective, calling 911 often initiates, and is indeed essential to obtaining, "adequate care."

This is of critical importance to those patients who may be experiencing, for instance, the symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. In addition, calling one's own physician first might introduce unnecessary delays in the chain of care or survival, where minutes can often make a significant difference in outcome or even life and death.

With this in mind, we would like to encourage all visitors and residents to Louisville Metro to use 911 Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in any situation that might require emergency medical care. It is always preferable to call 911 and ultimately end up with a non-life-threatening condition than to have a true emergency and miss the opportunity to obtain rapid and critical life-saving medical intervention.

NEAL J. RICHMOND, M.D., CEO
Lt. Col. BARRY TAYLOR, EMP-T
Louisville Metro Emergency Medical Services
Louisville 40202

Editorial: An alternate view

Submitted to the Kentucky EMS Connection

As a paramedic I must take issue with the story under your by-line in today's paper (Feb. 3 Courier Journal).

While the description of what often constitutes a true emergency was accurate, I must take issue with the statements of Dr. Raymond Orthober (a former paramedic) when he stated (according to the story) "Trauma visits are true emergencies, such as injuries from an auto accident, gunshot wound or industrial explosion..."  Nothing can be further from the truth, many times the ill-educated public come to emergency rooms with twisted ankles, dislocated fingers and stubbed toes.  Even calling 911 for such minor incidents tying up all too finite EMS resources.  Many of these patients can be safely and appropriately seen at urgent care centers.   If determined to be a true emergency, as the story relates, the UCC can call 911.  But proper utilization of UCCs could really take some pressure off severely taxed ERs.  Your stories do not forward that cause.

I realize that you depended on the ACEP website for the "outline" at the end of the story and that you can only report what you have access to, but this was in your story, "If you arrive (at the ER) in an ambulance or unconscious, you will be assigned a bed and treated immediately."  This is just not true and it encourages the public to call 911 as a matter of convienence "If I call an ambulance, I won't have to wait!"  This is a disservice to our community, while I realize you are not responsible for the words, the CJ did publish them for local consumption.  The ACEP would like you to THINK that's the way things are but they live in a rose-colored world.  I'll vent my feelings about the ACEP through the local EMS website at http://www.hultgren.org.

And speaking of EMS, why didn't Dr. Neal Richomnd FACEP appear in the story?  It would seem appropriate since we have an emergency physician as head of our EMS system and the doctors you interviewed will so readily say "call an ambulance" 

If you would like to discuss the world of emergency care from the "house-call" side of the issue, give me a call.

JAY REEVES NREMT-P
Louisville 40205

Copyright © 2005 The Kentucky EMS Connection. All rights reserved. News stories may be copyrighted by another organization. Original material may be reproduced provided source is credited.