What Happens If You Suffer A Heart Attack Or Other Life Threatening Situation And Call For Emergency Medical Services And They Show Up Late Or Don’t Show Up At All - Philadelphia Catastrophic Injury and Wrongful Death Lawyer Weighs In
The City of Philadelphia is currently dealing with an EMS crisis where lives are being put at risk due to the fact that EMS units are still arriving late to calls nearly 40% of the time. It is an excepted standard that EMS units should arrive at the scene of an emergency in less than 9 minutes. Several years ago, City of Philadelphia audits indicated that EMS units were only achieving the standard 60% of the time. City Controller, Alan Butkovitz, stated “The City is putting lives at risk by failing to do all that it can to have EMS units arrive on time. The response time is still well below the 90% industry benchmark." Butkovitz stated that a major factor contributing to EMS inability to arrive on time is the overwhelming demand on the EMS system along with an inadequate number of paramedics. The City Controller made a number of recommendations to address this situation. However, of paramount concern is that the City of Philadelphia and Fire Department must take all necessary and reasonable steps to improve EMS response time and to increase the number of paramedics available to staff EMS vehicles.
