Lives at risk as firemen stand in for paramedics

PATIENTS are being put at risk because paramedics are leaving firemen to deal with 999 calls, healthcare leaders warn.

Many firemen have not been trained in basic first aid – yet they are being left to care for seriously ill elderly patients for hours while they wait for an ambulance.

The Fire Brigades Union say the practice is irresponsible and dangerous but is becoming increasingly common because the ambulance service is so overstretched.

Senior union officials say fire engines are routinely being turned into makeshift ambulances to ferry patients to A&E. They normally carry a few blankets, oxygen masks to protect against smokes and a defibrillator – to restart the heart.

In one case earlier this year an elderly lady is feared to have died because she was left in the hands of fire crews for nearly 40 minutes while paramedics were delayed.

The ambulance service is facing unprecedented demand from the rising and aging population and in some areas 999 calls are up by 15 per cent on last year.

Paramedics are also having to respond to rising numbers of nonurgent calls from patients frustrated that they cannot get an appointment with their GP. They are also having to waste much of their time queued up outside A&E units which cannot accept their patients because staff there are also very busy.

This has all led to the ambulance service increasingly relying on firemen to attend potentially lifethreatening emergencies. The Fire Brigades Union yesterday warned that South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue were sending firemen with no medical training to 999 calls instead of ambulances.

It pointed out that only a third of firefighters at this branch had any medical training – and even this only consisted of a four day course of basic first aid. Yet in one case they were left to help an elderly lady who had stopped breathing for 45 minutes whilst they waited for the ambulance to arrive.

In another, they tended to a pensioner who had fallen and banged her head for two hours before they were forced to leave her on her own – to attend a fire.

The practice is occurring across the country and last July, firemen took a 16- year- old girl with suspected bleeding on the brain to A&E in Warrington, Cheshire

In December, crews were sent to a care home in Ryde on the Isle of Wight where an elderly woman had a stroke and were ordered to cut the rings off her fingers which were turning blue because of poor blood flow.

Ian Murray, vice-president of the Fire Brigades Union – which represents 44,000 firemen – said: ‘We know only a small percentage of firefighters are trained to give basic first aid.

‘It is irresponsible and dangerous to put untrained firefighters in the position of attending incidents to assist the ambulance service, with the knowledge that it is highly unlikely one will arrive for some considerable time.’

In January, a woman of 84 from Doncaster is feared to have died because firemen were sent to her home rather than an ambulance. Paramedics did not show up for 40 minutes after which time her pulse had stopped.

Last month the Mail revealed how London Ambulance Service had resorted to flying half way round the world to Australia to hire 225 paramedics because it is so overstretched.

‘Irresponsible and dangerous’