Do Firefighters Need to Be Dispatched for All Medical Emergencies?

By Jennifer Pierce, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Should the Oklahoma City Fire Department respond to every medical emergency call?

That question was brought up in the Tuesday city council meeting after Fire Chief Keith Bryant presented the department's budget.

"There's 2,800 calls for service for actual fires and 56,000 calls for medical," J. Brian Walter with Oklahoma City Council Ward 5 said.

Firefighters respond to all medical calls, often times arriving before an ambulance. They aren't sure if it's a true emergency until they get there.

"You could look at those and say those were unnecessary, well we didn't know that was unnecessary a lot of times until we get to the scene and see what the situation is," Bryant said.

Chief Bryant worries cutting calls isn't in the best interest of citizens. But he has been in talks with EMSA on how to come up with a solution that could save money and get a better idea of the nature of the call.

"Between us and EMSA, come up with a better way of gaining information so we know exactly when we are needed what the most appropriate response is, what the most appropriate equipment is," Bryant said.

That process has been in the works for more than a year now and it could take even longer before a new system is in place.

"We don't want to make sudden changes because sudden changes could have an impact on someone's life and that's not the way we operate," Frank Gresh with EMSA said.

The city council will review the fire department's response policy in 2011. At that time the council can decide to stay with the current system or recommend changing the policy.

Chief Bryant says there could be a savings to changing the system, but he isn't sure how much that would be.