By Brent Batten
Naples Daily News
NAPLES, Fla. — A standing agreement between the Naples Fire Department and Collier County EMS ends today, a harbinger of the difficulties that lie ahead as the community seeks an emergency response system that is more unified rather than less.
The SWAP program has been around since at least 2007. Under the terms of the agreement, a city firefighter would be assigned to a county ambulance in the city and in exchange a county paramedic would ride on a city fire truck. The theory was that the city firefighter would gain valuable experience as a paramedic and that county medics would learn to assist at the scene of a fire..
Dr. Robert Tober, the EMS medical director, has allowed city firefighters to engage in advanced life support procedures in part because of the experience they gained through SWAP. That ALS certification for city firefighters could be endangered if the city and county can’t find some other way to satisfy Tober that the firefighters are up to the job medically.
Full Story: City firefighters: Cooperative program an unfair SWAP