The community paramedic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The community paramedic - Essay Example Johns Ambulance of Western Australia) community paramedics are described as follows by The Council of Ambulance Authorities (CAA) report from the year 2009: The advantages of this new development are numerous and community focused. First, is that there is better access to healthcare services for isolated patients. Paramedics are often trained to reach remote locations and deal with diverse situations whether acute, emergency or chronic. This need is further exacerbated by the fact that physicians have been unwilling to attend to patients at home level (Money) due to matters of violence, cost and other issues (Magin P) (J). This therefore makes it possible for patients to access better healthcare in these remote areas. They, also provide an alternative to crowding of local health facilities that may be small or inadequately equipped. This is because facilities are known to be less equipped due to the reduced populous of the rural areas. The paramedics though, have adequate training and access to facilities such as life support that can be utilized in certain settings to enhance survival odds of patients before they get access to larger more equipped hospitals. Another advantage of the community paramedics is the reduction of load on the national emergency system 911, as they attend to the repeat cases and cases such as those of prank callers, drug abusers, chronically ill and mentally ill patients. This has a subtle advantage as it allows the 911 service to be more effective as an emergency tool for the truly deserving cases. This, though, is not to imply that the minor cases are less deserving. This also reduces the total budget cost on the state thus diverting the resources to provision of healthcare on other levels. Another advantage of this new venture is the fact that chronically ill patients, elderly patients and patients in need of frequent checkup can be catered for this is a service previously hard to come by, but highly essential for this