Iowa and Nebraska EMT’s consider a Crane to Transport the Morbidly Obese Bureaucrats
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America the obese is weighing down government budgets for things like cranes and forklifts to move 800-pound EMT patients. The cost of ambulances and equipment is increasing with America’s waist line. In 2008 27 percent of Iowa and Nebraska’s population was obese; that was up from 23 percent in 2005. Omaha recently spent $200,000 for an ambulance just to make it easier to transport obese patients. It’s reported some departments need equipment to lift up to 1,600 pounds up from 700 pounds.
Is HIPPA to protect the patient or to keep the taxpayers from having the facts?
I have to wonder how much of this is fact and how much is budgetary foul play; hocus pocus so they can continue to waste tax dollars. Let’s just say there are a total of 5 - 800 pound patients in both Iowa and Nebraska. Why couldn’t the rescue departments, when the time arises, rent a forklift or crane from a rental or construction company? Why do we need each and every EMT department purchasing a brand new crane or forklift to sit around some fire station? Ridiculous if you ask me. Pure poppycock is my guess.
They say lawsuits waste money, but for every dollar taken from the injured I see $10 being spent on needless expense with a fictious need created by the lobbyists.
Clark County Fire Department in Las Vegas is making a special purchase of a new ambulance that can handle a patient weighing 500 pounds or more. It’s more likely in Las Vegas that overweight heart attack patient will come out of the casinos so why not make the casinos pay for the special ambulance? Why Clark County’s Fire Department?
Why do the injured need to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, but legislators need only whine in front of a camera lens to get billions?
Here is part of the special reporting we see from Bio-Medicine,
Ray Carrol, the manager at American Medical Response, said that in the last six months, the company has handled 75 calls where they needed extra manpower to lift patients onto ambulances. He also said that moving someone that large in a regular ambulance poses safety problems for patients, paramedics and ambulance crewmembers.
The $250,000 (?144,000) vehicle, developed by the American Medical Response group, looks like a standard ambulance. But it is wider, with an especially large wheeled stretcher trolley. The vehicle, called a Bariatric Unit, also has a special ramp and a winch that can handle loads of 1,600lb (114 stone), and be operated by just one crewmember.
Is it the PI lawyers who are ruining this country, or ruining the gravy train for those who want to waste your tax dollars?
How many counties are there in the United States? There are 3,140 counties in the United States. $200,000 X 3,140 = $628,000,000.00. That's $628 million.
Do I smell lobbyists all over this one? That statement couldn’t be any vaguer in terms of the reality of why this expense is necessary.
Kansas City’s EMT’s state they need to get creative to move all that human lard. How about getting more creative, designed to save money. If we can pay terrorist response teams, why not obesity EMT response teams; why not make the terrorists responders’ obesity responders. Tell me where all those terrorist response team members are and what are they doing when the terrorists aren’t causing trouble? Perhaps we can take some of those TSA statues and power happy irritating excuses for human beings at the airport and make them do something between flights?
That might work. Let’s try it. Or is the idea not to save money and drive down the deficit?