CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte Fire Association slammed Medic’s recent announcement about not being able to respond immediately to lower priority calls. The firefighter's union said the move shifts responsibility onto the fire department.
Both Charlotte Fire Department and Medic employees are working hard. In fact, they’re both under mandatory overtime. The departments are now trying to figure out how best to serve the public with staffing issues on both ends.
On top of the staffing issues, Mecklenburg EMS said they’ve been getting an influx of 911 calls.
“The emergency department call volume is expanded beyond what they're able to accommodate," Medic's Dr. Doug Swanson said.
Last week, Medic announced they would no longer be able to respond immediately to all non-emergency calls. The department said could take 30 minutes to an hour to respond as they will only use lights and sirens for life-threatening emergencies.
The fire department, though, will continue to show up immediately and wait for the ambulance to arrive as needed.
"What this does is it shifts the burden from the medic to the fire department," Tom Brewer, the president of the Charlotte Fire Association, said.
Brewer said it means the fire department personnel may have to hang on scenes longer.
“We had a call yesterday where we had a fire truck that was at a doctor's office waiting for the ambulance to arrive for 50 minutes," Brewer said. "In that time a CPR came in and they couldn’t respond to it because the criteria to leave that patient wasn’t met.”
Charlotte Fire Deputy Chief Samuel Jones, who supports this plan, said the change shouldn’t impact emergencies.
“If [an] emergency call comes in and you're not on an emergency call, you have the ability, you have the authority to go ahead and proceed to that call," Jones said of his department.
Jones said the captain on scene also has the authority to call Medic to come immediately if they determine the situation is dire.
Medic sent WCNC Charlotte a statement saying this change was well researched, and that preliminary data indicates the program is safe and in patients’ best interest.
Brewer said it doesn’t go far enough and that both department should focus on new hires.
“We need to be able to provide the best service possible, and this policy doesn’t do it," Brewer said. "Right now, neither agency is adequately staffed, there's mandatory overtime for both. So unless they can address that issue the rest of these things are just band-aids.”
The departments insist you should still not hesitate to call 911 if you have a problem as someone will be there immediately to help you.
Contact Lana Harris at lharris@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and on Instagram.