In the firehouse, the tones sound for an emergency call, someone has overdosed and needs emergency medical care. Firefighters arrive on the scene to find an unconscious, unresponsive patient lying on the floor of the bathroom from a heroin overdose, while family members watch in terror. This scenario plays out across the United States hundreds if not thousands of times each day. When this scenario plays out, every firefighter knows they have just minutes to respond, which can be the difference between life or death. For this case study, in the last twelve months, 57 people in Anytown, USA, a city of 250,000 residents, have lost their lives due to drug addiction. The problem is an opiate, and heroin overdoses are killing people in this city at the rate of just over one person a week with no end in sight. What can be done to fix this growing problem and who should fix it? The problem is vast and multifaceted and will require a Taskforce comprised of Federal, State, local, and private partners and stakeholders to address this complicated issue.
The Anytown Fire Department(AFD) is comprised of approximately 400 firefighters and supervisors that currently respond to urgent medical emergencies as first responders only. A private ambulance company provides pre-hospital treatments and transports to the local hospital. Due to the age of the …show more content…
As the opioid crisis continues to grow, fire departments and EMS find themselves with heavier call volumes with little to no increase in funding or resources. With no financial increase, the opioid crisis becomes even more problematic for responders to pay for medical supplies including naloxone, a medication that is given to opioid overdoses victims reversing the effects of the opioids and hopefully save their