Emergency Medical

Baltimore's fire chief has given up on a controversial idea to privatize the city's ambulance service, pleasing the heads of unions representing paramedics who warned such a move could cost lives.Chief Herman Williams Jr., who headed a board that examined the proposal, said through a spokesman yesterday that a private company could not provide emergency response cheaper than the city does for $8 million a year."Based on bids submitted, there is no cost-savings to privatize the ambulance service," said Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, a Fire Department spokesman.

When Tennessee trauma surgeon Kimball I. Maull takes over Feb. 10 as the head of Maryland's statewide emergency medical services, he will find himself operating a system shocked and traumatized by state budget cutbacks.In all, by next July, the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services System budget for statewide services in the field will have been slashed from $6.8 million to $2.7 million, MIEMSS spokeswoman Rochelle Cohen said.Meanwhile, the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore has lost $1.2 million in state budget allocations and anticipated Medicaid reimbursements.

A Baltimore firefighter is challenging a department rule that all firefighters maintain Advanced Life Support certification, taking his case before a federal arbitrator yesterday. The closed-door hearing involving Ryan Wenger, an emergency-vehicle driver, centered on whether firefighters who obtain a higher rank should have to remain certified in advanced-level life saving skills, a department policy that has drawn the ire of the city firefighters unions. Wenger and the head of one of Baltimore's fire unions say firefighters who become officers or drivers have added responsibilities during emergency medical calls and should not have to focus on medical care.

With the flu season just getting under way, hospital emergency rooms throughout metropolitan Baltimore have been declaring "yellow alerts" this week -- meaning they are too busy to take additional patients. Though the number fluctuates from hour to hour, seven of the region's 21 hospitals were asking ambulances to take patients elsewhere by late afternoon yesterday. A day earlier, 17 said they were treating all the patients they could handle. "It's very busy," said Dr. Brian Browne, director of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

The chairman of a gubernatorial commission that recently recommended a new oversight board for Maryland's emergency medical services spends part of his time in the emergency room at Carroll County General Hospital.At 41, Dr. James A. D'Orta wears half a dozen hats. One of them is senior partner in Professional Emergency Physicians, an eight-member Baltimore-based physicians group that contracts to provide emergency room physicians at Franklin Square, St. Agnes and CCGH.The group is also to provide emergency room physicians for the new Atlantic General Hospital, scheduled to open in Berlin in May.Dr.

Reese Community Volunteer Fire Company is threatening to sue the county firemen's association for withholding its share of county money for emergency medical services. While other Carroll companies are charging a minimum $200 for an ambulance call, Reese has remained steadfast in charging $5 despite pressure from Carroll County Volunteer Firemen's Association, which oversees the county's 14 fire companies and related associations. The association started ambulance billing two years ago, but the Reese members voted last year to not charge for emergency medical service.

The nationwide trend toward privatizing ambulance services has not reached Howard County, but fire officials here say they want to be ready if the challenge comes.An evaluation report by a seven-member advisory panel organized last fall recommends that the county Department of Fire and Rescue stave off such an option by improving its services and its communication with citizens.Scheduled for release later this week, the report suggests giving community classes on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, outfitting fire engines with more life-saving equipment and hiring a medical director to oversee the department's emergency medical services (EMS)

Anne Arundel County is considering whether a private company should provide a critical component of its emergency medical services -- a controversial idea some say could lead to life-threatening delays and raise the cost of service."

On March 24, Thomas John "T.J." Flaherty, 13, and his 3-year-old niece were watching television when he gave her a Lifesaver candy as his sister-in-law had told him to do.The candy would keep Dana Jill Flaherty from crying while her mother washed clothes.Almost immediately after putting the candy in her mouth, Dana started choking on it. Her lips began turning blue.T.J. didn't have time to get his adult brother, who was upstairs sleeping.So T.J. applied the Heimlich maneuver he had learned in the first grade.

Minutes after two of Lt. Greg Frank's advanced medics whisked an elderly woman with chest pains to the hospital yesterday morning, headquarters dispatched the returning team members to a sick man in an Ellicott City office building. Frank, a certified paramedic, activated Engine No. 19's sirens and turned the vehicle around. The team reached the man, vomiting from vertigo, several minutes before an ambulance arrived. That's the kind of flexibility Fire Chief Joseph A. Herr wants to bring to every fire company in Howard County.