Authorizing City Council's joint Committees on Public Safety and Legislative Oversight to hold public hearings to investigate how the City of Philadelphia could handle the recent decrease of paramedics in the city, discuss the scope of possible increases in paramedic units which can be made, the improvements in emergency care those additional units will give and how those units could be distributed within city EMS departments.

WHEREAS, The City of Philadelphia firefighters union said that 252,358 emergency medical calls were received in 2005, with most units making 6000 to 9000 ambulance runs per year, one of the busiest EMS departments in the country; and

WHEREAS, Part due to the rapid increase in elderly population, the city has increasing need for paramedics and the level of experience commensurate with training that paramedics can give to citizens versus EMT units; and

WHEREAS, Paramedics train for 1000 hours and can deliver extensive care, including administering drugs and performing invasive procedures which EMT professionals, who train for 100 hours, are not authorized to deliver; and

WHEREAS, The greater availability of paramedics will increase the range of lives which can be saved, including congestive heart failure victims and those requiring invasive tracheotomy procedures; and

WHEREAS, Paramedics spend a significant amount of their training observing adult and pediatric emergency rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units, and psych wards, furthering their expertise in both medical knowledge and bedside manner when handling patients in crisis; and

WHEREAS, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said that the city would like to hire up to 27 additional paramedics to restore lost units previously cut; now therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the joint Committees on Public Safety and Legislative Oversight are hereby authorized to hold public hearings to investigate how the City Of Philadelphia could handle the recent decrease of paramedics in the city, the scope of possible increases in paramedic units which can be made and how those additional units could be distributed within city EMS departments.

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