JayG and Ambulance Driver both have columns up about this article in the Boston Herald. I was going to comment at their sites, but decided that I should just do a post of my own.

I agree that this is bad policy and will put EMTs and paramedics in a bad position when a patient or their family decides that the questions are being asked so that care can be withheld or patients be directed to specific hospitals.  For example, if we have a patient that needs to go to a trauma center, specialty cardiac hospital, or stroke center because of the condition, we are likely to see resistance because that speciality hospital is not “their” hospital. We get some of that now, this will only make it worse. This will generate complaints which management will be obligated to investigate and do something about in order to appease the offended party.

In other words, it’s just the kind of stupidity that we’d expect from officious officials who know nothing about the industry that they are regulating. When the people at OEMS first started talking about this, they were warned that it would be a sensitive topic and that most EMTs and paramedics would balk at doing this. They sent student interns out with several services, including mine, to develop ways to ask these questions without offending people. There were a couple of differences between these Department of Public Health (DPH) interns and the EMTs and paramedics who were doing the actual treatment.

1) The EMTs and paramedics were treating the patients and weren’t asking the questions.

2) The interns wore civilian clothes, not EMS uniforms AND identified themselves as interns who were asking questions.

3) The EMS providers didn’t let the interns interfere with patient care.

Despite OEMS being told this was a bad idea,  the liberals that they are,  didn’t let reality interfere with achieving their Utopian dream of being racists while trying to wipe out racism. Liberals never let facts get in the way of their never ending quest to solve problems that don’t exist. There is no idea so dumb that a liberal, especially one paid by the state, won’t pursue it as long as funding is available.

Now, on to Howie Carr’s column. Let me sum it up this way. Howie Carr is an idiot. I’m not sure where he got his source of information but there was nothing in the training Powerpoint that indicated that treatment should be withheld until the questions were answered. Even if there were (and again there wasn’t) no EMT or paramedic that I know would follow such as stupid rule. Good thing that Howie Carr isn’t an EMT, I guess. The Powerpoint was specific to asking the questions about race and ethnicity. Only an idiot like Carr would think that it was intended that these be the first questions asked of the patient. I am not defending OEMS in this, not even a little bit, since it’s a dumb plan being implemented in a dumb way, but Carr is spreading misinformation.

The Powerpoint also contained a number of demographic slides showing the differences in illnesses and mortality sorted by race. Forgetting that correlation does not necessarily equal causation, the geniuses at OEMS have somehow decided that there exists this great racial disparity in health care. Now, having drawn the conclusion, they are seeking data to support that. Of course we can’t expect someone from the media to actually research and understand what’s behind the story.

I was going to include a link to the OEMS training Powerpoint, but suddenly it’s no longer available. Here is the link, so you can see for yourself. The fact that OEMS has killed the link and hidden the Powerpoint should tell you something about what kind of Crap Cyclone they are experiencing at their headquarters. Nothing says, “We’ve screwed up” if you’re from the government like taking down a web page containing embarrassing information.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a news article in a few days telling us that the program is being suspended until “provider concerns can be addressed” and that one or two people with OEMS have decided to “spend more time with their families”. Not that this will be the end of this turd of an idea, OEMS will just wait until the furor dies down and go ahead with implementation. Remember, in government bad ideas never die, they just get retooled and reissued when no one is paying attention.

Once again, I’m driven to ask exactly why we have an Office of Emergency Medical Services?

Update: I just remembered what this reminded me of. Racial profiling. Remember it’s bad when the police do it, but it’s good for EMS to do it.