2011 Another Year And Another Budget Belt Tightening
"Please Mayor Bloomberg... Can I have some more?"

So here we are and it's another year of cutbacks for EMS. In 2011 FDNY EMS provided service to the citizens of NYC answering 1,413,790 calls for help.
Funded only by 11 cents out of every 100.00 dollars NYC collects in taxes FDNY EMS obviously operates on a shoestring budget. Once again we are the
Mayors and FDNY's budget bitch. While we continue to cut back and do more with less Mayor Bloomberg still appeared to be having a good time last year.
According to Checkbook NYC from January 1st 2010 until December 31st 2010 Lord Bloomberg spent: at least:

$573,578.00

On food, liquor and catering for the Mayors Office. Not bad when we are in a budget crunch.

Now those of you from outside NYC might think that this is a lot of money and the Media would be all over it... I mean here we are in hard times and Mayor
Bloomberg is going off and spending $12,000.00 in tax money for booze at K&D Liquors might be something the media would pick up on... Well, the sad truth is
the NYC media is too busy licking Mike Bloomberg's balls so you will probably never read about this in the press.

The days of investigative journalism in NYC are dead. I don't mean that it just died today... I mean the body has decomposed in the ground, grass and weeds have
grown in over the burial site and moss has grown all over the tombstone.
So Lets Look At The Numbers
Once again it is time to take a look at FDNY's Vital Statistics. This is where we can measure how well FDNY has delivered serviced over the last year. For the most
part it is a fairly dry read however there are a few things to note when you combine the Vital Stats with the Fire and EMS yearly stats from 2011.
2011 was another busy year for FDNY. In 2011 FDNY's 10,787 Firefighters and Fire Officers responded to 490,669 calls for assistance. Those numbers include
all fires, false alarms, medical emergencies and non fire calls. Almost 1/2 of the calls Firefighter's responded to were for medical emergencies. FDNY responded
to 216,063 medical calls. Not too bad...

Now lets look at FDNY EMS. With 3,200 EMT's, Paramedics and Supervisors FDNY EMS responded to 1,413,790 calls for help. When you break down the
numbers that comes to 923,121 more calls than FDNY Suppression.

FDNY EMS does 2.8 times the calls of the Firefighters with 1/3 of the staff and EMS only makes 2/3 of a Firefighters salary.
Lets All Talk About Response Times.
Mayor Bloomberg Talks About Near Record NYC Public Safety Levels in 2011

 Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Fire Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano today announced that near record levels for
public safety were maintained in 2011, with crime on the decline again and the second lowest number of fire deaths since comparable records have been kept.

PR- 459-11

So how are we doing according to Mayor Bloomberg?

"Ambulance response times in 2011 to life-threatening calls were the fastest on record at 6:31, better than the previous low of 6:37 in 2006."

Thats it. He didn't really expand on it. That kind of summed everything up.

Of course there is so much more to the story. They never seem to mention the rest. For life threatening emergencies Segment 1-3 the "Response time" is 6:31
This is what they call life threating emergencies (Cardiac Arrest, respiratory arrest, choking, etc...)  However when you factor in all the call types (Segment 1-8)
that time rises to 8:08.

So what does the Mayor and the Fire Department consider "Non life threatening emergencies" (Segment 4-8)?

Abdominal pain, altered mental status, minor amputations, burns, child abuse, overdoses, emotionally disturbed people, Gynecological hemorrhaging, heat
emergencies, hypertension, inhalation injuries, jumper up, medical reactions, medivacs, motor vehicle accidents, labor, fires, rapes, seizures, sick calls, stat
transfers, etc...

These "Non emergencies" add up to 843,253 calls
Before You Begin A Fellow Paramedic Needs Some Help.
Paramedic Joe Riffe of Louisville Metro Emergency Medical Services was involved in an accident and had to have his leg amputated. He has a family, he is out of
work and is unable to get by. He needs help. Please show that EMS is a family and go to his page, read his story and donate. If you can't donate send him well
wishes at the very least. Visit his blog: Prosthetic Medic and read more here: Fischer Needs To Stop Screwing With LMEMS