The Pantagraph
Copyright 2007 The Pantagraph
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — City fire employees transported people to hospitals as paramedics for the first time this week.
The step won’t change the level of service available to patients, but it will help Bloomington prepare to fill the role of offering countywide paramedic service.
Bloomington, Normal and smaller communities in the county have relied for nearly 20 years on Lifeline Mobile Medics, a privately run ambulance service, for calls requiring the more advanced care of paramedic service. Lifeline officials announced Thursday the ambulance service will stop taking emergency calls Sept. 1 - 16 months earlier than the originally planned stop date.
Bloomington made one ambulance available for paramedic service as of 7 a.m. Tuesday at the fire station at 1705 S. Morris Ave.
Bloomington, Normal and surrounding communities continue to offer more basic care from emergency medical technicians. Normal also is upgrading its fire department to offer paramedic service, but Bloomington plans to step into Lifeline’s emergency role in outlying areas.
Until Sept. 1, both Bloomington and Lifeline still will respond to calls requiring advanced life support, said Bloomington Assistant Fire Chief Dan Shanks. But the Lifeline driver or paramedic may be asked to drive the Bloomington ambulance to a hospital while a Bloomington paramedic and a Bloomington trainee care for a patient, he said.
“If it is an intermediate level or an advanced-level - paramedic level - transport, then we will ask Lifeline to assist us by actually driving our ambulance to the hospital so that our preceptor can continue to supervise that student,” Shanks said.
The move will allow the city to train its own firefighters in the field as they work toward upgrading their emergency medical technician certifications, Shanks said. To become certified for different levels of service, including EMT basic, EMT intermediate and paramedic, a person needs time in the field under the supervision of more experienced medical responders.
“The primary reason we put the ALS on the street at this time was to facilitate the training of our own personnel,” Shanks said.