{"id":18557,"date":"2013-02-07T19:31:04","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T00:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=18557"},"modified":"2013-02-07T19:27:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T00:27:48","slug":"john-r-wayne-interim-fire-chief-lehigh-acres-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2013\/02\/john-r-wayne-interim-fire-chief-lehigh-acres-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"John R. Wayne, Interim Fire Chief Lehigh Acres Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

By John R. Wayne, M.A.A., EMT-P<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interim Fire Chief Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
John R. Wayne, M.A.A., EMT-P
Interim Fire Chief Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In reference to the potential closure\/relocation of the 88-bed Lehigh Regional Medical Center\u2026this will amount to the ER becoming nothing more than another \u201curgent care\u201d center.<\/p>\n

Any ambulance patient that would likely require an admission to the hospital for their illness and\/or injury would be better served at another area hospital in Ft. Myers.\u00a0 If our crews transported these potential \u201cadmissions\u201d to the remaining ER at Lehigh Regional, we would be doing the patient a disservice.\u00a0 \u00a0In this scenario, the patient would require an Ambulance transfer to another facility in Ft. Myers better equipped to deliver the appropriate level of medical care.\u00a0 As a result, these patients would incur two (2) Ambulance bills and multiple medical facility charges as well.\u00a0 This is not an efficient use of the pre-hospital care system in Lee County or in the patient\u2019s best interest.\u00a0 It is our job to deliver our medically stable patients to the most appropriate receiving facility that is properly staffed\/equipped to treat their specific condition on the initial transport.<\/p>\n

Lehigh Acres Fire District ambulances transported 5,476 patients to area hospitals during the calendar year 2012 and 2,984 (54%) of these patients were transported to Lehigh Regional Medical Center.\u00a0 Currently, the Lee County Common EMS Treatment Guidelines (the Medical Protocol that all Lee County Ambulance Transport Services operate under) specifically states that \u201cpatients shall be transported to the local hospital of their choice,\u201d now this choice (Lehigh Regional Medical Center) will be taken away from these individuals as they will be forced to seek treatment from another facility other than their local \u201ccommunity hospital.\u201d\u00a0 The collateral damage that will be created with this potential change in hospital status impacts the Fire District in several ways.\u00a0 This will result in more patients being transported to Ft. Myers hospitals; therefore, there will be fewer Ambulances available in Lehigh Acres for an immediate\/timely response.\u00a0 Typically, transports into Ft. Myers add an additional hour to each unit\u2019s available time as a result of the 20-30 mile additional round trip.\u00a0 In addition, the Ft. Myers receiving facilities often have Ambulances waiting up to an hour or more to \u201coff-load\u201d patients.\u00a0 This could potentially add an additional hour, resulting in up to a two (2) hour long delay in our Ambulances being able to return to the Fire District to handle additional calls for service.<\/p>\n

As a point of interest, the number of patients that the Fire District transported in 2012 was 23.4% higher than the previous year and the District has transported 301 out of 560 patients to date (February 4th) to Lehigh Regional Medical Center.\u00a0 At this pace the Fire District looks to surpass the 2012 results in all areas once again.<\/p>\n

I hope that the individuals responsible for this potential change review all aspects of how this will impact the residents and visitors of Lehigh Acres, Florida.<\/p>\n

In addition, Glades County EMS, Hendry County EMS, and Collier County EMS (Immokalee) routinely transport to Lehigh Regional Medical Center as well.\u00a0 This closure\/change will have an impact on these services also.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John R. Wayne, M.A.A., EMT-P Interim Fire Chief Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District In reference to the potential closure\/relocation of the 88-bed Lehigh Regional Medical Center\u2026this will… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}