Bradley Backs Plan to Use Firefighters as Paramedics

Mayor Tom Bradley threw his support Friday behind a controversial $7.1-million Fire Department spending package aimed at improving ambulance response times by having firefighters replace paramedics on emergency calls that do not involve life-threatening situations.

The city budget proposal, which has also been championed by the city Fire Commission, would fund the purchase of seven new ambulances and the hiring of more than 40 firefighters and 20 supervisors and support staff members.

Bradley said his goal is to lower the average citywide response time to eight minutes for heart attack victims and others in life-or-death situations--a span that is not always met in some sections of Los Angeles.

“(This) divides the work so that the paramedics are not overburdened, dealing with mundane kinds of medical emergencies,” Bradley said at a morning press conference.

The mayor said he would forward the spending plan to the City Council as part of his 1990-1991 budget proposal.

Alan Cowen, the chief of the Fire Department’s paramedic division, concurred, telling reporters that emergency personnel “should not have to take care of your herniated hangnails when someone is hit by a car down the street.”

Responding in a telephone interview, however, Fred Hurtado, president of United Paramedics of Los Angeles union, continued to voice his earlier criticism of the plan. Hurtado said the budget proposal would provide a lesser level of services to city residents because participating firefighters do not have the same emergency medical training as the city’s 450 paramedics.

“The net effect is to have firefighters doing jobs that we are supposed to be doing,” Hurtado said. “And who would you rather have?”

If the council ultimately gives its approval, Hurtado said, his union will file a lawsuit to block the changes. He said that city officials have thus far failed to negotiate terms of the plan with his union.

At present, paramedics are able to respond to 82% of life-threatening emergencies within eight minutes in central Los Angeles, South-Central Los Angeles and the East San Fernando Valley, according to the Fire Department.

But in other sections of the city, the eight-minute response goal, recommended by the American Heart Assn., is met only 41% of the time.

Further complicating the emergency care situation is the dwindling number of hospitals participating in the region’s trauma care system, down from 23 to 13 since 1983. With paramedics forced to travel greater distances, critically ill patients are on the road longer, forcing paramedics to serve fewer emergencies.

“Hospital councils are worried that just beefing up one end of the system won’t help relieve the system of some of the enormous stresses put on it,” David Langness, spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California, said Friday. “We need either more trauma centers or more funding (from the state).”