FIRE DEPARTMENT PROGRAM IMPROVES RESPONSE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 1, 1993                   TAG: 9303010082
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
FIRE DEPARTMENT PROGRAM IMPROVES RESPONSE TIMES
Roanoke's first-responder program, in which firefighters trained as emergency-medical technicians respond to calls until paramedics arrive, has been operating at three stations for two years.
The program recently was instituted at Station No. 13 in the Peters Creek area. It is to be expanded next year to include Station No. 10 near the airport.
The first-responder program is similar to a system that is operating at Station No. 4 in Southwest Roanoke, No. 11 in Southeast and No. 14 in Northeast off Orange Avenue.
The response times in the Peters Creek and upper Northwest community averaged 8.2 minutes in the past year - slower than the goal of 6 minutes that is considered critical in life-threatening emergencies. For the city as a whole, the average response time on emergency-medical calls was 5.2 minutes in 1992, down from 6.2 minutes in 1991.
Response times have been reduced by an average of 3 minutes in the areas where the first-responder program is operating.
The city has a combined Emergency Medical Services system that includes three groups: full-time paramedics, firefighters at four fire stations and volunteer rescue squad members.
Until the city switched to a combined system five years ago, the volunteers operated as the Roanoke and Williamson Road lifesaving crews.
The squads were consolidated into the Roanoke Emergency Medical System Inc., which has 120 volunteers to help provide the service. The city has 25 full-time and 26 part-time emergency-medical employees. About half of the city's 244 firefighters have received EMS training.
Fire Chief Rawleigh Quarles said he hopes that eventually all firefighters will be trained as EMS technicians. That would enable the city to establish a first-responder program at all fire stations or merge the EMS system with the Fire Department.
Nationwide, there is a trend toward merging EMS programs with fire departments.
Quarles said he thinks the city's combined system is operating smoothly, although a merged system might be more efficient. He denied an allegation made by some volunteers that the Fire Department is trying to take over the EMS system and force the volunteers out.
City Council voted recently to continue the combined system for at least one more year.
Councilman William White said he believes the city could answer emergency calls faster and save money if its EMS system were merged with the Fire Department. The volunteers still would be needed in a merged system, he said. But some volunteers don't like the idea of merger.
"It would be the end of the volunteers," said Sidney Robertson, president of the Roanoke Emergency Medical Services Inc.
City Manager Bob Herbert has assured council that the volunteers are needed to work with the city's paid EMS workers and firefighters in the combined system.
Before 1985, the city relied exclusively on volunteer lifesaving crews, in keeping with its heritage as the home of the first volunteer rescue squad in the world.
But the city began hiring full-time paramedics and emergency-medical technicians when emergency calls began increasing rapidly and membership in the volunteer lifesaving crews dwindled.
Because of decreasing membership, the volunteer crews did not have enough staff to answer medical calls during the day. The number of paid emergency personnel has gradually increased in recent years.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB