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Fire District 6 medical care at stake in election

Officials say voters have choice between advanced or basic

By John Branton
Published: July 30, 2010, 12:00am

Officials say voters who live within Fire District 6 will have a clear choice in the Aug. 17 primary election when it comes to emergency medical services: Do we want advanced life support, performed 24/7 by highly trained paramedics, which is provided now? Or basic life support by emergency medical technicians who can’t perform several lifesaving procedures?

Paramedics, who undergo 1,500 hours of initial training, can establish IV lines, administer lifesaving drugs and diagnose heart rhythms, increasing the odds of survival and early recovery from heart attacks and strokes, officials say.

Emergency medical technicians, with only 110 hours of initial training, aren’t authorized to perform those functions.

Fire District 6 protects a large area including Hazel Dell, Lake Shore, Felida, Salmon Creek, Mount Vista, Sherwood and the Fairgrounds.

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In the first half of this year, 88 percent of the 2,464 calls for help in the district were for emergency medical service, Fire Chief Jerry Green said in a bulletin.

Fire District 6 will ask voters to renew the emergency medical services (EMS) levy at the same rate, 45 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, that voters approved six years ago.

Because of shifting property values, however, the district is receiving 39.4 cents per $1,000 for 2010. That means Fire District 6 would receive about 5.5 cents more per $1,000 starting in 2011 than this year, Green said.

The current EMS levy expires at the end of this year.

If approved, Proposition 1 will renew the EMS levy for another six years.

At 45 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, the owner of a home worth $300,000 would pay $135 a year.

In an odd mix-up, officials recently learned that a number of area residents were under the impression that Fire District 6 was shutting down.

The confusion stemmed from news that the neighboring Vancouver Fire Department will close its Fire Station 6, in the Burton area, for budget-cutting reasons.

“We’re not closing anything,” Green said. “That’s strictly the Vancouver Fire Department.”

If voters decide against District 6’s EMS levy renewal, Green, his senior staff and firefighter team leaders have recommended a contingency plan to cut 13 emergency responder positions, along with other administrative jobs, because of the money the district would lose.

“In 2011, the EMS levy is projected to account for $2.7 million or 27 percent of Fire District 6’s operating budget,” the bulletin said.

Asked why officials don’t plan to lay off firefighter-EMTs rather than the better-trained firefighter-paramedics, Green said they don’t have that option. The union contract says layoffs must be done based on seniority, with the most recent hires let go first.

Besides reducing the level of medical care, the layoffs also would mean longer response times, which now average less than four minutes, officials say.

The critical problems where paramedics can give lifesaving medications include cardiac arrest, congestive heart failure, dangerously high blood pressure and breathing problems including asthma, said Capt.-Paramedic Scott Johns with District 6.

Paramedics also can perform tracheal intubations and establish new airways in the neck of a victim who can’t breathe otherwise.

For more information, visit http://www.ccfd6.org.

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john. branton@columbian.com.

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