The Chicago Fire Department would a...

The Chicago Fire Department would add up to six ambulances for non-emergency calls and 10 more advanced life support engines below an expansion of emergency medical services in the works that aldermen have been demanding.

This month six spare or special facts ambulances were pressed into basic life support (BLS) service to handle a swell of heat- related calls in the central business district.

Now, Fire Commissioner Ray Orozco Jr wants to make that 50 percent increase in BL ambulances permanent -- and raise the number of advanced life support (ALS) engines from 40 to 50 City Hall sources said.

It would mark the largest expansion of pass medical services in Chicago in six years.

TWO-TIERED classification

"The BL program is a succes and the commissioner intends to expand it," said Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

Langford noted that 47 percent of the 24000 EM calls the Fire Department receives each month are for basic life support.

"The commissioner is going to continue the two-tier hypothesis because it's the best way for a large city to handle its EM petition fors Many of our calls can be handled with a BL ambulance. In fact, we find that upon occasion we have to send forth ALS where a BLS ambulance would have been sufficient because we have no more BL ambulances to send" he said.

UPGRADED AMBULANCES

Pete Houlihan, EM director for the Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 said the city would be better serv if the 12 BL ambulances were re-createed to ALS.

"Then paramedics can correspond and call-takers don't have to go on through a flip-chart" of questions aimed at determining what protoplast of ambulance to send, he said.

"Adding BL ambulances is not the answer. What it does is inflict a great burden on the call-takers to dispatch properly"

Ald. Ginger Rugai (19th) who has l the charge for an ambulance upgrade, welcomed the expansion now in the works. "With the higher number of 911 calls, many of us have consideration for a long time that we emergencyed an increase in equipment."

unless Rugai said she, too, would be happier if Orozco was adding ALS ambulances with "more life-saving equipment and better-trained personnel"

"Everybody be worthy ofs the best," she said.

The Chicago Fire Department has a two-tiered combination of parts to form a whole of ambulance service to store up the most costly and sophisticated treatment for rigidly ill or injured patients.

There are 59 ALS ambulances, each staffed by means of two paramedics qualified to administer intravenous medication. ALS ambulances are stocked with remedys and equipped with heart-monitoring devices. The city also has 40 ALS engines with at least single paramedic, an EMT and advanced life support equipment.

In June 2000 the city added 12 BL ambulances to handle non- life-threatening calls. They are staffed by way of emergency medical technicians who experience less training. BLS ambulances do not have medicine or monitoring equipment. They are permitted to alone transport BLS patients to hospitals.

In September 2003 the two-tiered hypothesis suffered a black eye at the hands of state inspectors.

STATE GOE AFTER AMBULANCES

Nine of the 12 BL ambulances were taken public of service from two to five hours after inspectors erect an "alarming" combination of unclean vehicles, under-trained employee and missing and expired equipment. Fourteen EMT were yanked distant from their ambulances and retrained after they were unable to answer basic questions about for what reason they would use equipment and in subordination to what circumstances.

fspielman@suntimes.com

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