The new reality for the Philadelphia Fire Department, and in other cities, is that the vast majority of the work is done by medical responders, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Because of the exodus of industry and advances in fire prevention and in construction practices, the number of structural fires has been decreasing for decades. And due to an aging population and behavioral factors, medical emergencies have skyrocketed.
A few times a week, the department is so overrun by medical emergencies that no ambulances are available to respond immediately to 9-1-1 calls, according to several paramedics.
Of the 276,939 emergencies to which the Fire Department responded in 2012, 84 percent were for medical calls. Yet the city employs 248 paramedics and 1,912 firefighters.
消防专员劳埃德·艾尔斯（Lloyd Ayers）表示，他希望在未来几年将护理人员的排名提高到300名。但是，即使有这些增援部队，费城的紧急医疗服务（EMS）也可能会过分劳累。
Response times for fire incidents are generally on par with standards set by the National Fire Protection Association, according to a year-old report by the city’s financial watchdog, the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority. But on medical runs, for which the national benchmark is to arrive within 5 minutes 90 percent of the time, responders get there in that time frame only 45 percent of the time, the report said.
One reason: Philadelphia’s paramedics are likely among the most overworked in the country, according to Jeff Zack, a spokesman for the International Association of Fire Fighters’ U.S. headquarters.
“I don’t get a break. My body just feels like it’s so tired,” said one paramedic from a different station who, along with about a dozen others, agreed to talk with the Daily News only anonymously because the department bans them from speaking with the media without approval. “I’m picking up these people, carrying them down the steps. We do a lot of physical work besides the fact of doing the [mental] work … with the adrenaline pumping when you’re trying to save someone.”
Many units here run 6,000 to 8,000 calls per year — more than double the IAFF’s national standard of 2,500 to 3,000.
Aside from adding personnel, the administration said it is pursuing policy changes that will improve EMS performance. But the road to reform is littered with pitfalls: a venomous management-labor relationship and a dominant firefighters’ culture that overshadows the needs of paramedics.
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