(08-23-2018 08:15 PM)dfarr Wrote:  

(08-23-2018 08:04 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(08-23-2018 07:21 PM)banker Wrote:  It is cheaper for universal health care. You save a lot of money not buying ambulances and having fewer employees.

Doubtful.

I served close to 20 years in a community that probably 80% of the population was under socialized medicine and we accounted for a significant part of our EMS department's run volume. Probably a good 60% of those calls were BS, with a good 20% being absolute BS like a headache they had for a week, and a toothache they had been suffering from for a month yet could be bothered to literally walk across the street to the free dental clinic that was open twice a week.

My favorite part of working triage when I worked in the ED at UAB was sending ambulance abusers to the waiting room. The look on their faces when they got dropped off in the waiting room was priceless. No, you don’t go straight to the front of the line because you come in via ambulance.

We had a wreck call one afternoon where the only damage to either vehicle was to the tag on the front of the vehicle that hit the other. Despite that the five people in the other vehicle all complained of neck and back pain. We were so busy that we were running this call in an area where we would have been third due and EMS was coming from clear across the county so they had a delayed response. Following protocol we did full spinal immobilization on every single one of them and just waited for EMS. EMS arrives and the Paramedic is absolutely disgusted at the most blatant case of State Farm Syndrome so he tells us "I'm making it clear to the ER when I call this in that they can all be put in triage." He called us a couple hours later to tell us that when he cleared the ER on his last call they were just being seen. Imagine a couple hours strapped down to a spine board and your head secured to head blocks with 2" tape. Gotta love it!