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Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

Public Safety Director Michael Huss and Others Continue to Blame the Medics for the Snow

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:02:09 -0500 by

Cliff Tuttle at Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk has a couple of posts about the death of Curtis Mitchell. The Power of Saying “I’m Sorry”. Then there is the posting of what I wrote in the comment section. Medic’s Perspective on Mitchell Case.

The original post by Cliff Tuttle is good. I agree that the problem was one of not enough snow plows. My only complaint was that the apology of Public Safety Director Michael Huss is not a real apology. Public Safety Director Michael Huss is only passing the buck and blaming the medics.

It is as if Public Safety Director Michael Huss is saying, I confess! They did it!

–

A comment from EMS PRACTITIONER makes the following assertions.

The fault lies with the medics and them alone.

That makes me wonder if this is a pseudonym of Public Safety Director Michael Huss or someone else at City Hall.

and

Even if the ambulance is stuck in the snow… SOMEONE should have WALKED to the house to verify and left their partner with the truck awaiting dig out.

Why even provide ambulances to the medics, at all? The lazy slobs only need to get out and walk and just make it happen (which is the Enron motto). It’s as simple as that. They really are squandering resources that might be better used by the management for vacations and other more important things.

Because, in the eyes of the alleged EMS PRACTITIONER, all EMS does during a snow storm is sit around waiting for someone to pull them out of the snow.

I was shoveling for hours that weekend. With all of that shoveling, I only cleared a small amount of ground. The wind was blowing some of the snow right back where I shoveled. Nobody needed to come pull me out of the snow, because I dug myself out of the snow. I was exhausted, wet, and frustrated. And I didn’t even try to walk a quarter of a mile up and down a steep snow-covered and ice-covered bridge, leaving my partner behind to make excuses about where I went.

What would my partner say?

Dispatch. I don’t care that we are canceled. I don’t care that you are ordering us to leave this location and respond to another patient.

We are unable to respond to any more calls, because my partner decided to head off into the snow to be able to say that somebody got to the residence. He brought a flag to plant as proof that we made it.

Tell all of the other patients that since we are psychic, we know that only this patient will die if we do not reach him. Now leave us alone!

Then maybe a half hour later, maybe 2 hours later, . . .

Dispatch! I see something!

I can’t tell if it is my partner, the patient, or something else. If the patient left the residence by one of the other roads in the area, my partner wouldn’t see him. Or, if my partner took the wrong road, and the patient took the main road, the result would be the same.

I hope it isn’t the patient, because we are out of service until my partner returns.

I would probably get a raise. Public Safety Director Michael Huss and EMS PRACTITIONER would probably hold a press conference praising me. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

I’m sure that’s the way it would happen. There would be no auto-da-fé with me as the main course. I take that on faith.

–

Too Old To Work, Too Young to Retire has a post that is also mostly a comment from an earlier post. Comment From Someone In Pittsburgh. Here is a bit of what the media have not been covering.

Our units all trucked through the snow to patients that were critical and life threatening, and even some that weren’t. Several vehicles were stuck for up to 9 hours. Plow requests were being denied because the orders were the trucks couldn’t deviate from their assigned routes.

and

We still remain third service and do all rescue within the City. The Public Safety Director is exploiting this incident to further his agenda.

Public Safety Director Michael Huss had the report from the medical director before his press conference. The medical director’s report did not blame the medics. Public Safety Director Michael Huss has been blaming the medics without any good reason.

Well, maybe there is a good reason. If he does not point the finger at someone else, then he might start to look like the one who was responsible for not arranging for extra snow plows and other means of transport for emergency conditions.

Public Safety is about preparing for emergencies.

It looks as if the plan of Public Safety Director Michael Huss is just blame the medics.

Blame the people who actually transported close to three time their normal number of patients, in spite of the snow-covered and ice-covered roads.

We know where the medics were during the storm.

Where was Public Safety Director Michael Huss?

EMS crews were running without any breaks.

EMS crews were dealing with snow on every call.

It is not lazy to go to the next call, when you are ordered to.

Only excuses are coming from Public Safety Director Michael Huss.

Where were the extra snowplows?

Where were the 4 wheel drive vehicles?

Expecting the medics to make up for the lack of preparation by the city is irresponsible.

We know where the medics were during the storm.

Where was Public Safety Director Michael Huss?

–

My other posts on the death of Curtis Mitchell –

City may discipline EMS workers – Public Safety Director Michael Huss – 02/18/10

Where Was Public Safety Director Michael Huss during the Death of Curtis Mitchell? – 02/20/10

Public Safety Director Michael Huss and Others Continue to Blame the Medics for the Snow – 02/22/10

The Need for Evidence Before Assessing Guilt – 02/24/10

Anonymous Comments on the Death of Curtis Mitchell – 03/02/10

Podcasting, Critical Judgment, and the Death of Curtis Mitchell Part I – 03/22/10

Podcasting, Critical Judgment, and the Death of Curtis Mitchell Part II – 03/22/10

Podcasting, Critical Judgment, and the Death of Curtis Mitchell Part III – 03/22/10

What kind of punishment do you get for NOT disobeying dispatch? – 03/23/10

The Scapegoats Will Be Punished – 03/23/10

Pittsburgh – Punishment, not Planning – 03/24/10

Josie Dimon was the Scapegoat of Public Safety Director Michael Huss in the Death of Curtis Mitchell – 02/16/11

Michael Huss – Pittsburgh EMS Only Needs Someone Good With a Shovel – 02/16/11

Links updated 02/16/11.

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Filed Under: Critical Judgment, Heresy Tagged With: , , ,

Whistle-Blowing Nurse Is Acquitted in Texas

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:42:10 -0500 by
Much has been written about the fanatics criminals trying to get Anne Mitchell, RN locked up. I will only give a brief summary.

A quack – Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., who for some odd reason has not yet been stripped of his medical license, had the sheriff investigate anonymous reports to the Texas Medical Board about his abuse of patients. The sheriff arrested Nurse Mitchell and charged her with a felony that could put her in jail for 10 years and could include a $10,000 fine. The fraudulent investigation probably did contribute to her being wrongfully fired. The county prosecutor, who works for the charlatan, decided to prosecute.

All of these frauds belong in jail.

The case was investigated by Sheriff Robert L. Roberts Jr., a friend and admiring patient of Dr. Arafiles, and tried by the county attorney, Scott M. Tidwell, a political ally of the sheriff and, according to testimony, Dr. Arafiles’s personal lawyer.[1]

In case you are thinking that this is a misrepresentation of their criminal abuse of power, the jury did not have to deliberate for long.

The jury foreman said the panel of six men and six women voted unanimously on the first ballot, and questioned why Mrs. Mitchell had ever been arrested.[1]

Where would a good story about fraud be without a bunch of cognitive dissonance?

Sheriff Roberts said he was disappointed in the verdict but did not regret the prosecution.[1]

The next jury should arrange for these frauds to be bunkmates in a prison where they do not have any friends.

We want nurses and others to feel comfortable reporting potential problem doctors to state medical boards. The medical board should be the ones determining if the complaint is valid.

After the verdict, the nurses’ lawyers pivoted quickly to the lawsuit[2] they have filed in federal court against the county, the hospital and various officials, charging that the firings and indictments amounted to a violation of due process and their First Amendment rights.[1]

Texas, it turns out, has laws that protect whistle-blowers — but only from civil suits. Criminal prosecution is another matter entirely. After the medical board received the nurses’ anonymous complaint, its investigators gave a copy to Dr. Arafiles. That complaint alleged that he’d given patients inappropriate care, including sewing a rubber tip not intended to be attached to humans onto a patient’s crushed finger (a case that the Texas Department of State Health Services had red-flagged). Too, the complaint noted, Arafiles urged patients to buy Zrii, a questionable nutrition supplement sold via a pyramid-marketing structure.[3]

Last month Andrew Wakefield was publicly humiliated for his fraud. Let’s hope they follow that up with criminal charges.

This month another scam artist, Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., is publicly humiliated for endangering patients, as well. Likewise, let’s hope that after the civil trial, there are criminal charges filed against this witch doctor and his minions.

White Coat has written about this –

Nurse Acquitted

Respectful Insolence has written a lot about this –

Report a bad doctor to the authorities, go to jail? It might really happen for Anne Mitchell, RN in Winkler County, Texas

Dr. Rolando Arafiles: Antivaccine rhetoric topped off with colloidal silver for the flu and Morgellons disease

Report a bad doctor to the authorities, go to jail? The trial, day two

Report a bad doctor to the authorities, go to jail? The cranks weigh in

Winkler County Nurse Anne Mitchell is not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty!

Footnotes:

^ 1 Whistle-Blowing Nurse Is Acquitted in Texas
By Kevin Sack
Published: February 11, 2010
New York Times
Article

^ 2 Anne Mitchell and Vickilyn Galle, plaintiffs, vs. Winkler County Memorial Hospital; Stan Wiley, individually and in his official capacity as administrator of the Winkler County Memorial Hospital; Robert L. Roberts, Jr., individually and as Sheriff of Winkler County, Texas; Rolando G. Arafiles, Jr., individually; Scott M. Tidwell, individually and in his official capacity as County Attorney; and Mike Fostell, individually and in his official capacity as District Attorney, defendants.
US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Pecos Division.
Free Full Text PDF

^ 3 Medical emergency – In reporting a doctor’s mistakes, a West Texas nurse risked going to prison
Houston Chronicle Editorial
Feb. 11, 2010, 7:53PM
Article

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Filed Under: Censorship, Fraud, Heresy, Unicorn Medicine Tagged With: , , ,

Andrew Wakefield and Cognitive Dissonance.

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:30:32 -0500 by
He made up a syndrome.

He performed unnecessary and risky medical procedures on children.

He received hundreds of thousands of pounds from lawyers for a study to look for that imaginary syndrome, because the imaginary syndrome could make the lawyers a lot of money.

He was horribly incompetent in his research methods.

He lied about what he did.

He sued Brian Deer, the investigative reporter who uncovered most of the fraud. He had to withdraw the law suit and pay the expenses of Brian Deer.

In 2004, when they became aware of the fraud, 10 of the 13 authors of the study had their names removed from that study.

On January 28, 2010, a little over a week ago, The General Medical Council released its verdict.

The Fitness to Practise Panel has heard this case under The General Medical Council Preliminary Proceedings Committee and Professional Conduct Committee (Procedure) Rules Order of Council 1988. It has considered which, if any of the facts not admitted by Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor John Walker-Smith and Dr (now Professor) Simon Murch have been found proved and then went on to consider whether such facts found proved together with those admitted, would be insufficient to support a finding of serious professional misconduct.[1]

The Panel has accepted in full the advice of the Legal Assessor as to the approach to be taken. The three doctors have nothing to prove, the burden of proof is on the GMC throughout. If the Panel were not sure beyond reasonable doubt, the sub-head of charge was found not proved in favour of the doctor, in accordance with the criminal, as opposed to the civil, standard of proof.[1]

A lot of findings of Admitted and found proved.

A lot of findings of Found proved.

The occasional finding of Found not proved.

A lot of irresponsible – Found proved.

A lot of dishonest – Found proved.

Some crazy people are still defending Andrew Wakefield.

You would have to be crazy to defend that fraud.

Or dishonest and irresponsible.

These people have convinced themselves that vaccines cause autism, even though research has repeatedly shown no connection.

So, in order to protect themselves from having to admit that they endangered their children and other children, they need to defend this, even though Andrew Wakefield has admitted some of the fraud and a court has determined that he is guilty of a lot more.

When people should admit that they made a mistake, some will actually become even more defensive of their clearly mistaken position.

A clear case of cognitive dissonance.[2]

If you wish to read about the research that has been done on autism and vaccines, there are scores of studies.[3] Studies paid for by many different organizations – governments, universities, non-profit groups, and even drug companies. They don’t find any connection between vaccines and autism.

Andrew Wakefield was receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds from lawyers to show a connection. Is it surprising that he did?

Andrew Wakefield was working on a vaccine to compete with the MMR vaccine, so he has another reason he might benefit financially from making false accusations about the MMR.

Andrew Wakefield has shown that he is willing to subject children to risky procedures for no benefit to the children, as long as he makes his money.

There has been a lot written by others on the topic. In the comments the anti-vaccinationists will try all sorts of misleading approaches. Some will claim that they are not anti-vaccinationists, but that they only want safe vaccines.

Vaccines are safe.

How much safer could vaccines be?

There are a some examples in response to Dear Jenny McCarthy . . . at A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver. Another is at Asshole doctor responsible for false MMR/autism claim gets his at Cranky Epistles.

In The martyrdom of St. Andy at Respectful Insolence, there is far more detail about the dishonest and irresponsible conspiracy to link autism and vaccines. A listing of a lot of posts on this topic, even some defending the fraud, can be found in On The Lancet’s Retraction of Wakefield’s 1998 Paper Alleging A Connection Between the MMR Vaccine and Autism at I Speak of Dreams.

The unfortunate thing is that Andrew Wakefield is still making over a quarter of a million dollars a year to spread his lies for Thoughtful House, an anti-vaccination organization in Texas. When it comes to Andrew Wakefield, follow the money – he does. He came to the US, but he is not a doctor in the US.

If you know of Andrew Wakefield pretending to be a doctor, call the police.

And vaccinate your children for their sake.

More information is available at Brian Deer’s website.

Footnotes:

^ 1 Fitness to Practice Panel Hearing
UK General Medical Council
January 28, 2010
Free Full Text

^ 2 Cognitive dissonance
Wikipedia
Article

^ 3 Vaccines and Autism
Science-Based Medicine
Article

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Filed Under: Ethics, Fraud, Heresy, Malpractice, Mythology, Research, Vaccines Tagged With: , , , , ,

CBS Neck and Neck with CNN for Most Incompetent Network

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:23:57 -0400 by

Also possibly posted as part of the Skeptics’ Circle over at The Mad Skeptic. I procrastinate and am late in sending this in. Maybe The Mad Skeptic has already finished this edition. Anyway, go check out the rest of what is there.

Then:

Complain to CBS: CBS resident anti-vaccine propagandist Sharyl Attkisson sucks up to anti-vaccine pseudoscientist Andrew Wakefield.

The most famous fraud in medicine, that Criminally Blundering Scientist, Andrew Wakefield, was praised on the television network that has decided to give CNN a run for its money in the category of incompetence.

The CBS (Comedic Bumbling Scaremonger) network decided that they would give some air time to an exposed fraud to promote his latest larceny. He has already been shown to have taken payoffs from trial lawyers to fake his research. Is he pushing a book? So, why does anyone pay any attention to him? One reason. He tells them what they want to hear. And if it is written in a book, it must be true. OK, 2 reasons. He tells them what they want to hear, he feeds their paranoia, and if it is written in a book it must be true. OK, 3 reasons. . . .

If you believe that the people reporting the news, such as Sharyl Attkisson, are objective, you probably were told that by a reporter. If you believe that Andrew Wakefield does anything that is not designed to make him money, you probably were told that by Andrew Wakefield or one of his accomplices. If you think that Generation Rescue Generation Revenue knows anything about medicine, you probably were told that by somebody at Generation Revenue – somebody trying to sell you something.

Anybody, who uses only bumper sticker slogans as their medical evidence, clearly is not worth listening to. Too much, too soon. Based on what? They don’t know. They only feel. Ignorance is their strength. Green the vaccines. That doesn’t even mean anything. And then they use the made up word, Toxics, as if it were a real word.

Because, when you don’t know what you are talking about, it doesn’t matter what you say. It only matters what you feel. And they want you to feel angry, so they can make money off of you.

You should be angry. They want you to sacrifice your children to satisfy their feelings. They also want to make money off of you. They are selling books and magical mystery treatments – guaranteed to lighten your wallet, but certainly not guaranteed to be safe. They demand more and more vaccine research. The research continually shows that vaccines are safe, but they keep asking for more research – hoping for the fluke grouping of autistic children in the treatment group, so they can claim that it was the vaccine that caused the autism. They already do make that claim, but all of the evidence shows that they are lying.

Of course, they will sell you some of their dangerous all natural products. They don’t have to show that they are safe, because they sell them as supplements, rather than medicines. Supplements will kill you. You have no way of knowing what you are getting, because the politicians (such as Sen. Tom Harkin) have minimized oversight in response to donations from the real big money supplement groups – Big sCAM. And they get a quarter of a billion dollars – each year – of our tax dollars to look for evidence to support alternatives to medicine that has evidence that it works. Talk about pork.

When your money is going to buy their untested supplements drugs, they do not care about safety. When your money is going to pay for well tested vaccines, to protect your children, they are ranting and raving about danger.

One thing that can be said about everything that these 2 recommend – Not Safe!

Not safe for adults – and definitely not safe for children.

Interviewer – And yet in many cases, vaccines have effectively eliminated diseases. Measles is among the top five killers in the world of children under 5 years old, yet it kills virtually no one in the U.S. thanks to vaccines.

Jenny McCarthy – People have the misconception that we want to eliminate vaccines. Please understand that we are not an antivaccine group. We are demanding safe vaccines. We want to reduce the schedule and reduce the toxins. If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f___ing measles.

Jenny McCarthy on Autism and Vaccines
By Jeffrey Kluger; Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2009; Time Magazine

Reduce the schedule? Based on what?

Reduce the toxins? She is giving a chant, like a cheerleader, so repeating the word reduce works in the cheer. The toxins claim is just naming ingredients that are in microscopic quantities and are safe, even in children. Of course, this complaint about toxins is from someone who has botulism injected regularly, to maintain a youthful appearance. What does she understand about toxins?

Do you want the measles or the autism? Again, based on what?

These questions are nothing but a scare tactic.

There is no connection between vaccination and autism. You can look at all of the research, or you can listen to a stripper and an exposed fraud. A fraud who faked his research to make it appear that there is a link between vaccines and autism. Listen to real doctors? Or listen to these 2 ringleaders of a circus of ignorance and anger.

Why do people listen to such psychotic ranting? Mao was more compassionate than either of them and he tops the updated list of greatest mass murderers. Judging by the number of people skipping vaccines, we will probably not get people to realize just how dangerous her advice is until there are a lot of dead children. Probably not even close to Mao’s 73,000,000, but who knows how persuasive she can be.

So that you can keep track of how many people are being killed, because of people listening to the anti-vaccine mob, get the Jenny McCarthy/Anti-Vaccine Body Count widget. There are 2 other designs at the web site.

Jenny McCarthy Body Count

217 dead? The current numbers are actually 235 dead and 49,556 preventable illnesses. I don’t know why the widget is not up to date.

2007: Jenny McCarthy Begins Promoting Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric

Maybe it is just a coincidence. Maybe it is a coincidence that the number of cases of disease, and there are plenty of other diseases documented at the site, began dropping with the introduction of vaccinations, leveling off at very low numbers, and staying low until Jenny McCarthy started telling people that it is wrong to protect their children from these illnesses. Be fair to measles, or something like that.

Why is it wrong to protect my child from these vaccine-preventable diseases?

Loving parents should protect their children, not listen to a stripper giving deadly medical advice.

Am I being unfair?

Ask a parent who has had a child die because of Jenny McCarthy or Andrew Wakefield.

Then there is the big question.

Why was Andrew Wakefield being interviewed about an article appearing in a minor medical journal?

Do they normally cover all of the articles published in the more reputable medical journals, but are now adding to that extensive medical coverage?

Not at all. This is important news only to those who believe in the religion of Andrew Wakefield. The Lancet, which published the study that had to be retracted due to Andrew Wakefield’s fraud, is not going to believe that he had a sudden onset of honesty. JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association), the New England Journal of Medicine, Pediatrics, the British Medical Journal, et cetera, have reputations for quality that they need to maintain. Professional responsibility. Why even look at something from these frauds? Maybe the peer reviewers had no idea of the identity of the authors, but did not see anything about the paper to justify inclusion in a major medical journal.

Neurotoxicology? I never heard of the journal before, but maybe they wanted a bit of publicity. Dr. David Gorski goes into detail on the many conflicts of interest in this study. He also has links to the full study, which has been published at a couple of autism misinformation sites. Monkey business in autism research, part II.

For further information on Andrew Wakefield there is the reporting of Brian Deer:

Thoughtful House: Since the Royal Free ejected him in October 2001, Andrew Wakefield first re-emerged as “research director” of the self-styled International Child Development Resource Center, in Florida, which sells expensive products for autism, including enzymes and purported “genetic tests”. He was then installed at Thoughtful House in Austin, Texas, earning $280,000 a year.

Wakefield’s patents: Nine months before Andrew Wakefield and London’s Royal Free hospital medical school unleashed a global scare over the MMR vaccine, they filed, on June 5 1997, the first of a string of patent claims for theoretically vastly profitable products which could only succeed if MMR’s reputation was damaged. These included a purported safer measles vaccine – a potential competitor – and treatments for bowel disease and autism. All were based on claims that measles virus in MMR was at fault.

These are just 2 examples of the many sleazy activities of Andrew Wakefield. There are a lot more at http://briandeer.com/. Andrew Wakefield is not a doctor in the United States, although he works in the US. Has he been practicing medicine without a license? It would be a surprise if that were the one ethical part of his life.

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Filed Under: Children, Critical Judgment, Fraud, Heresy, Malpractice, Unicorn Medicine Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fla. EMS director pulls certification of 25 paramedics

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:18:14 -0400 by
It seems that there is a bit of a squabble going on down in Florida.

Twenty-five North Naples firefighters are no longer allowed to work as paramedics because they haven’t met training requirements set by Collier County Medical Director Dr. Bob Tober.

North Naples Fire Chief Orly Stolts said the move puts good medics out of commission and endangers residents.[1]

A fire chief opposed to training? WTF?

Oh, it’s EMS training that he is opposed to. That explains it. The chief thought that he would be able to force the medical director to sign off on the ex-medics, just because the chief was going to huff and puff and sputter and grimace and cry like a little baby.

“What he’s done is minimized the fire department’s ability to save lives,” Stolts said of Tober. “We’re going to have to stand there and wait to give life-saving medication until an ambulance arrives at the scene. That puts our guys in a pretty hard spot.”[1]

Well, he is the chief. He should know.

He is a fire chief. His highest ranking medical person is telling him just the opposite of what he wants to hear. He just really, really, really doesn’t want to hear this.

“We’re going to have to stand there and wait to give life-saving medication until an ambulance arrives at the scene.”

If he truly believes that, then maybe he should have acted as a Chief and made sure that his people had the required training. This is all the fault of Chief Numbskull.

This is a wonderful example of a blithering idiot.

Stolts said arranging to have his firefighters pulled from an engine once a month causes significant scheduling and overtime difficulties.[1]

In other words, Chief Stolts is completely responsible for this. He chose not to follow the medical training rules. I wonder if he does that with fire training rules.

Maybe he is cross-trained and incompetent at both fire and EMS.

Maybe. We know he has one area of incompetence fully covered.

Footnotes:

^ 1 Fla. EMS director pulls certification of 25 paramedics
By Ryan Mills
The Naples Daily News
August 26, 2009
EMS1.com
Article

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Filed Under: Cross-training, Fraud, Heresy, Medic X Tagged With: , ,

MSP Aviation vs Everybody Else

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:11:32 -0400 by

Everybody Else.

MSP Aviation.

One or more Pilots.

Only one Pilot.

Two or more Medics.

Only one Medic.

Excellent care en route.

The ride is free, the
Medic is doing all
he can, give him a
break and remember
the ride is free – sort of.

Usually the closest
helicopter is sent.

We have to send our
helicopters all over the
place to encourage
political support – do
you have any idea how
expensive this program
is and how many people
need to get their cut?

Medical Specialists on board.

I do Paramedic,
Homeland Security,
Law Enforcement,
Search And Rescue,
and anything else
they dream up,
such as flying
politicians around
to sell the program –
I forget,
what am I doing Today?

Fast, high quality care.

As long as we are fast,
who cares if there is any quality?

The same as the rest of your
medical care, it isn’t free.

The only way we can get away
with such mismanagement is by
telling people it is free.
It isn’t free – everybody pays
in their taxes.

For profit or non-profit.

One quarter billion dollars
just to replace the fleet of
outdated helicopters using
their foolishly optimistic
current estimates.

Does nothing to keep local
EMS from improving quality.

Forget your local EMS,
all the money comes to us.
The worse local EMS is,
the more often
they will fly patients.

Local EMS could be dramatically
improved with this money
– good for everybody.

Screw local EMS –
the money is ours!

MSP Aviation has fought every bit of progress. They have resisted improving patient care. This opposition to bills to improve EMS is just more of the same.

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Filed Under: Ethics, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , , , ,

Continued Opposition to Good Helicopter EMS in Maryland

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:52:47 -0400 by
In the Maryland House of Delegates work group actions on SB 650 and SB 764, there seems to be the intent to keep MSP (Maryland State Police) Aviation in charge of HEMS (Helicopter EMS) in Maryland. This will bring MSP Aviation closer to the quality of private HEMS companies, but still with only one ALS (Advanced Life Support) provider. Apparently the deficiencies of MSP Aviation are so great that the legislature can only handle some of them at one time.

The recommendations, which were voted on yesterday afternoon and will be passed along to three House committees today, also call for state police to retrofit their helicopters with safety features, enhance flight standards to meet those of commercial medevac companies, add a second pilot to each flight and begin purchasing a new fleet of helicopters. In addition, the recommendations call for establishing a joint legislative oversight committee to continue the work group’s efforts.[1]

In spite of all of these improvements – improvements that would not be needed if MSP Aviation were up to the standards of private HEMS companies – MSP Aviation will still be far behind the private companies in what may be the most important quality indicator.

The work group recommended that the program seek accreditation from a national trade organization if money is available in the fiscal 2011 budget. That would require state police to add a second medical provider to medical flights, at a cost of about $2.26 million a year.[1]

Although they are supposed to deal with the most unstable patients in the state, MSP Aviation acts as if they are the Texas Rangers. One riot, one Ranger. Patient care does not work that way.

Maryland residents will have to wait to have MSP Aviation improved to the level of the rest of the country.

Maryland residents will have to wait to have MSP Aviation improved to the level of the rest of the world.

Until they do, MSP Aviation will continue to be an embarrassment to EMS.

“In the end, I think we validated that the system is good. It’s not broken,” said Del. John L. Bohanan Jr. (D-St. Mary’s), the group’s chairman.[1]


Brian Slack
Those opposed to the two bills show their support for the status quo at a rally at the state house.

It seems that what is important to the chairman of the Maryland House of Delegates work group is satisfying the protesters. He is even using their words. Is he a marionette? How much more broken would it have to be for him to stand up to the welfare queens?

MacGyver would be proud of what they have done with millions of dollars of duct tape. Of course, MacGyver only created temporary solutions. He only had a one hour episode, including commercials. The Maryland House of Delegates work group has the rest of their constituents’ lives.

The group has recommended further evaluating triage procedures to reduce the number of unnecessary flights. That effort is strongly supported by Del. Dan K. Morhaim (D-Baltimore County), an emergency room doctor and work group member who has questioned spending millions of dollars on new helicopters and other equipment while other health initiatives go unfunded.

“For a long time, we have been flying too many patients,” Morhaim said. “There are very simple protocol changes that can reduce that number.”[1]

At least someone seems to get it.

Why does it take a fatal crash to get the legislature to force MSP Aviation to improve?

Why does MSP Aviation always fight improvements?

This isn’t about MSP Aviation.

This is about the patients.

Would somebody please tell that to MSP Aviation.

Footnotes:

^ 1 Legislative Panel Calls for Cuts in Copters, Bases
By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 10, 2009; Page B04
Article

There are several other articles on this:

Legislative panel endorses state police control of medevac fleet
Changes sought include new helicopters, higher certification levels
By Gadi Dechter
March 10, 2009
The Baltimore Sun
Article

Panel endorses state police-run medevac
Astle pledges to keep pushing for changes
By Liam Farrell, Staff Writer
Published 03/10/09
HometownAnnapolis.com
Article

Panel: Add Extra Pilot, Medic To Medevac Missions
Reporting Mary Bubala
Mar 10, 2009 7:33 am US/Eastern
wjz.com
Article

Panel Suggests Tighter Certification For Medevacs
Posted: 6:37 pm EDT March 9, 2009
UpdatedD: 6:39 pm EDT March 9, 2009
WBAL Baltimore
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Filed Under: Ethics, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , , , , ,

Welfare Queens Protest the EMS Responsibility Act

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:15:26 -0500 by
March 4th was the opportunity for irresponsible people to oppose attempts to improve the quality of care in Maryland.

Why would they do that?

Politics. Nothing but Dirty Politics.


Brian Slack
Those opposed to the two bills show their support for the status quo at a rally at the state house.

The sign reads – Why Change What is Not Broken?[1]

How bad does it have to be for people to realize that they are being lied to.

Broken may not be the word.

It is a rotting festering corpse polluting everything it touches. It also kills.

The people protesting have something to gain from defeating these bills – SB 650 and SB 764. They are making money from keeping things the way they are. That is the problem. Things have stayed the same, or become worse, for decades. That is the legacy of Dr. R Adams Cowley. At least that is his legacy in the hands of those running EMS in Maryland.

In one interview, Dr. Matthew Lissauer,[2] a doctor at Shock Trauma, says that paying for the helicopter program out of driver’s license taxes should be seen as a good thing.

Really?

If it is a good thing, why don’t we expand the system to all ambulance transport in Maryland?

If it is a good idea at all, why limit this to helicopter transport?

The reason is that Dr. Lissauer benefits from the money for the helicopter program, since they frequently return to Shock Trauma with patients. This is money going from tax payer pockets into his pockets.

When the money is spread out over the state, the cost does not seem so bad, but what if we operated everything this way? The excesses would have bankrupted the state, and the tax payers, long ago. This is a failed system. The people of Maryland deserve better.

Others talk about the helicopter program as a World Class operation. It is only world class in the third world. Who else in America operates with only one medic on board? Where in the world do you have to go to find such an complete disregard for patients’ lives?

Dozens of state troopers and their supporters rallied outside the State House yesterday in opposition to pending legislation that would change – and perhaps privatize – Maryland’s emergency helicopter transport system, one of the first and most venerated in the country.[3]

By venerated, they appear to mean that when anyone tries to reform it, they are opposed by this kind of self-serving political machine. This represents the worst of American politics.

Change?

We don’t change, we just get out the vote to keep the MSP (Maryland State Police) Aviation the worst staffed EMS in the country. We are determined to stay there.

Decades of attempting to improve this antiquated system will probably fail, one more time. Maryland Swindlers Prevail Again.

A sad commentary on how gullible people are in EMS. Somebody states that bad care is the best in the world and we believe them. Is there any wonder why so many of the EMS myths persist? We are just a step or two out of the Dark Ages. People are actually protesting against good patient care, because bad care is free.

The people of Maryland deserve better.

There is another article on the rally.[4]

Footnotes:

^ 1 Maryland Crews Respond to Save Medevac, Fire Programs
Posted: 03-04-2009
Updated: 03-05-2009 09:20:47 AM
Susan Nicol Kyle
Firehouse.com News
Article

^ 2 Some Lawmakers Support Privatizing Medevac System
Reporting
Adam May
Annapolis, Md. (WJZ)
wjz.com
Article and Video

^ 3 Report signals that medevacs should remain under state control
House Speaker Michael E. Busch calls the draft ‘absolutely’ premature
By Gadi Dechter
March 5, 2009
BaltimoreSun.com
Article

^ 4 Opponents to medevac changes mobilize
By Liam Farrell, Staff Writer
Published 03/05/09
HometownAnnapolis.com
Article

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Filed Under: Corruption, Helicopters, Heresy, Politics Tagged With: , , ,