SFFD

A tribute to former Firefighter Bob Sivertson

l3wis September 18, 2016 3Comments

Another member of heady daze of 1970’s Democratic power has passed and his friend Jim Powers reminds us of his friend Robert Sivertson.

Just before Powers started his September 16, 2016 scheduled Sioux Falls Democratic Forum on talk, he reminded us of Sivertson’s place in South Dakota legislative history.

Cameraman Bruce spent many hours campaigning with Sivertson and his Democratic majority partners back then. We all should appreciate what they tried to do to move the state out or the scandals and problems of the past.

We have Open Meetings and Records laws, an updated, less confusing SD Constitution and something I know looking at the mess it is in now, a more streamlined state government bureaucracy.

More questions arise about our ‘New and Improved’ ambulance service

l3wis June 8, 2016 8Comments

As the Argus Leader reported, there seemed to be some trouble getting an ambulance when most needed.

Sideras stated in the article that “many SFFR members are paramedics”. This ‘may’ be a change from the last contract held by Rural Metro, the fire department paramedics were PROHIBITED from using any of their skills within the city limits.

Was that ban lifted under this contract? Was any Advanced Life Support (ALS) equipment added to the fire trucks for the paramedics to use?

If not, Sideras’s statement is misleading because the paramedics cannot perform any skills other than their EMT-level training (under the old contract).

If the Ambulance company (Paramedics Plus, Rural Metro under the old contract) is in system overload, only they could approve other ambulances to enter the city (such as volunteer service ambulances from surrounding communities, like Med Star, Sanford or Avera) to transport patients to hospitals.

Did this change in the new contract? Wouldn’t this be better than people driving themselves to the hospital? Why wouldn’t the fire department have this decision-making power instead of the company that profits from transporting the people?

Like Mr. Lonneman said, in a tornado or some other major disaster, should we need a private company’s decision to bring in more ambulances? Maybe language has changed in the new contract, I don’t know, but a good question to ask.

It would be in the patient’s best interest to have the ability to call in an ambulance whenever one was needed, Paramedics Plus losing a transport shouldn’t be the City’s concern. If they lose too many transports, they’ll put another ambulance in service.

On a side note. REMSA, should be determining what calls will and won’t count against the ambulance service for that 90% of the time number they have to meet. For example: If the ambulance has to go through construction traffic because 12^th street is torn up, the Q/A person has decided in the past that isn’t the ambulance company’s fault, the construction was caused by the City, so that delay didn’t count against their numbers. Another example: All of their ambulances were out on calls on higher than expected call volume due to a multiple vehicle accident.

The fire department counts these types of calls and doesn’t take them as exceptions for their accreditation and as you probably guessed, Rural Metro always was in compliance with their required 90% times.

It would be interesting to see how many things are now in the new contract that could benefit the SFFR by allowing them to charge PP back for services like fire stand-bys, equipment, code 5 calls, etc.

I have often scratched my head why the SFFD just doesn’t run a public ambulance service that they could set up as an enterprise fund (all the money paid into the service could go in to improving it instead shareholder profits). The Fire Department is already beating the private ambulances to these calls, it is a majority of their calls, and we are already paying for it through our taxes, so why not find a way to save the city money by charging for the service while providing better service then what our private ambulance companies are doing. The city of Los Angeles figured it out, why can’t we?

Firehouse Magazine Article (Guest Post Patrick Warren)

l3wis May 29, 2016 2Comments

BY Patrick Warren, Edited by Scott L. Ehrisman

I wrote an article over a year ago that was finally published in Firehouse Magazine this month. It’s taken them so long to publish that it could be considered old news now:

WELLNESS ARTICLE

One thing that has disappointed me is the City’s unwillingness to admit there’s flaws in its mental health programs for firefighters. Its wellness programs are great. They are far above what most other employees receive I’d imagine, but the reality is firefighting is not like other jobs and fitness/wellness coordinators do not have the training to identify, diagnose, and treat mental health issues.

The fact that the City is in denial became quite clear in the Argus Leader article published on June 5, 2015. Where the fire chief, Jim Sideras listed several “fail-safes” he said are in place to help those who struggle with mental illness, because it is considered part of fitness for duty.

Some of the highlights from the article were:

• Annual medical evaluations to National Fire Protection Association Standards: These physicals are supposed to determine physical and mental fitness for duty. Two years after I was fired and no changes have been made to add the listed mental testing as required by the standard.

• Post Incident Analysis (P.I.A.): This probably sounded great to the public, but any firefighter knows this was pure B.S. to stretch out the list. P.I.A.s have nothing to do with mental health, they are conducted by fire personnel and are a review of fire incidents to ensure policies and procedures were followed and the correct strategies and tactics were used. They make certain all operations were performed safely and are used as learning tools to critique incidents to see if anything could have been done more effectively.

• There is only 1 test on that list done by a person qualified to identify and treat mental illness and it is done at the time of hire.

• Comments Sideras made include “We can’t twist someone’s arm and make them go…” and “If they do not share their information of issues… …the proper level of care or referrals cannot be achieved.” So, translation: expect the person with the mental health issue to self-diagnose that there is a problem, and blame them if they don’t?

So since it was clear to me the City was more interested in defending its actions than making change that might actually help people, I wrote the linked article that was recently published in Firehouse Magazine.

The emails I’ve received from firefighters around the country are all basically the same form of question/comment: “The fire service is a brotherhood, how could your chief prosecute you like that?” Once I explain the perfect storm of us both being up for the fire chief position, him convincing himself I was out for his job, the ethics investigation I submitted*; they understood better: payback.

Criminally prosecuting you is one thing, but when your former employer leaks your case to the media to ensure you are publically humiliated and discredited?  Considering the ethics complaint was never fully investigated but instead “swept under the rug” you might call it whistleblower retaliation.

*Warren filed an ethics complaint against Sideras for undocumented vacation time. Nothing came of the complaint.