City Will Change ‘No Units Available’ Policy

Detroit (Mich.) fire officials say they will revise a policy of not notifying citizens or the police department when ambulances aren’t available to immediately respond to incidents. A directive issued earlier this month told fire dispatchers they weren’t required to notate “N.U.A.” (no unit available) in the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) record, or notify the police department when ambulances were unavailable. The policy was immediately criticized by city and union officials, saying it put the public at risk. The comm center policy meant that patients often waited several hours for an ambulance instead of finding alternate transportation to a hospital. The city’s EMS system has been struggling under a heavy workload for at least five years, often staffing just seven to 10 ambulances for a city of 700,000. “We pretty much run no units available all the time,” Detroit EMS union president Joseph Barney told a reporter. He said earlier this month one ambulance handled 23 runs in a 12-hour shift. Police chief James Craig said the police department is assisting with EMS transports. In fact, he said officers are transporting about half the injured children they encounter at incidents because of the delayed arrival of an ambulance. Read the memo and read more here.