Well you gotta hand it to the VP of Paramedics Plus in Sioux Falls, he’s learning, instead of just bald face lying to the public, he just won’t answer questions at all. And hey, he’s got Jill Franken on his side;
Sioux Falls Public Health Director Jill Franken described the changes as part of a 60-day pilot program aimed at decreasing reliance on outside aid from neighboring services, but she wouldn’t elaborate on how it would achieve that goal.
“Isn’t it fair to say we don’t yet know the results of the pilot test?†Franken said.
Jill, I think the question was ‘what is the plan’ not ‘what are the results’. I know you are a smart girl and all, you know the difference between the two? Right? I could call you and explain the difference between those two questions but it may be too complicated to answer over the phone.
Franken said under the new, temporary dispatching rules, firefighters will be sent to fewer lower-level medical calls. The department has more than 30 trained paramedics on staff.
That’s funny, because when Jill was asked if the tax payers and the SFFD was subsidizing PP she said ‘we were splitting hairs’ but now all of sudden she is cutting back on that ‘assistance’.
It will be interesting to see how this ‘pilot test’ turns out. Isn’t it great Sioux Falls patients in emergency situations are being used as guinea pigs? Sounds more like the city and PP can’t stand to give Med-Star even a few crumbs, so they devise secret plans to avoid them.
Playing politics with Event Centers and swimming pools is one thing, but when you play politics with the health and well-being of citizens and tell us it is ‘too complicated’ to explain, that’s just wrong.
Has anyone asked the question or determined if PP has as many paramedics and vehicles as the prior provider?
PP claims to preposition its vehicles in the community to reduce response time, but if that is working then wouldn’t their response time be better than their predecessor’s?
Unless, to save money and enhance profits they are working with a smaller staff and fleet, which could hopefully meet the demand of its services through prepositioning, but perhaps this alleged trick is not working, however. Otherwise, they would not have such a challenged response record, would they?
That’s the second time in the Argus the City (once by Sideras, once now by Franken) has used the fire department paramedics as a ‘defense’ that they can support the EMS system when there’s an ambulance shortage.
Problem is, REMSA doesn’t let the SFFR paramedics use their skills. They work as basic EMT’s. SFFR is a basic life support service, not an advance life support service like Paramedics Plus.
It would be nice if the media would be smart enough to ask questions when they’re being lied to. But they don’t ask questions, so they print the City’s lies and everyone thinks the system is running okay and there’s an equivalent backup in place.
Sideras knows the fire paramedics can’t use their skills, so does Franken. It’s in the contract the Argus was nice enough to publish online. That means they intentionally misled the public with their comments, but the media won’t call them on it because then they might get excluded from a future news story from City Hall.
Disgusting.