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You may remember a story on the BBC yesterday suggesting that firefighters are fed up with lifting obese patients who have fallen from there bed. On average, in the whole of England, firefighters are called out just once a day to assist with this task. I don’t know about you, but I thought that this hardly amounts to “unnecessary strain” as was reported. I asked this question “Should firefighters be used to assist obese patients who have fell out of bed?” on Firefighternation.com to get the views from the USA. The comments were interesting, here are a few.
“We need to take a step back and pull Our heads out of our asses. We are in the business of helping people whether that be putting out a structure fire, Dislodging a patient from a mangled Vehicle, putting out 10 acres of wildland, Or helping lift an obese person back into their bed.”
“Someday you are going to be in need of help.. would You want the Firefighters to roll their eyes and make comments under their breaths when they are assisting you?”
“You have to know when to call for help. There is nothing wrong with saying I can't do this without more help. It is all part of the job and who else is there. There really is no one else to do what we do.”
“I have to agree with you Gavin, I do believe that a call is a call. The fire service has morphed into the one service people call when they don't know who else to call. In my city, citizens call the firehouse directly if they have fallen. A lot of time they don't want to get the lectures from the EMS crews about weight loss and staying healthy. I know a lot of us are thinking those same thoughts while assisting them, but we are civil servants, so we do what needs to be done and are glad to do it.”
“We have had some problems with certain older care homes that called several times a day . We met with their management and explained the situation and the problem was resolved”
I think I opened a can of worms, there are more comments on the next 5 pages, getting progressively more emotive click here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7939630.stm
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