Conflict of Interest in Peoria--January 2017

 

January 3, 2017

 

Dear Everyone,

 

Happy New Year.

 

Please see this post.

 

The Peoria Fire Department has three Engines that can give paramedic care--Engines 4, 12, and 20.

 

During much of 2016, the PFD tried to have Station 19 upgraded to paramedic. So far the powers that be have been able to rebuff these attempts to improve pre-hospital care medical care in Peoria.

 

Please stay tuned.

 

John

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Comments in 2021--

For physicians or for anyone to have a conflict of interest is not immoral or unethical. It is however unethical to act on the conflict in a way that cannot be justified ethically and that violates trust. Conflicts of interest can be "institutional weeds." They take root below the surface and become pervasive problems long before they show their ugliness. The weeds in this case expose physicians to powerful temptations to make money at the expense of their patient's welfare.

I addressed the Peoria City Concil in 2006 at the Citizen's Forum and said the following--

I would recommend that the PFD have its own medical director whose job would be to protect Peorians when they dial 911 20,000 times each year. He or she would strongly advocate that the PFD advance from its Basic Life Support status to Intermediate or Paramedic. The fire department medical director would ensure that the firefighter-paramedics be allowed to act as paramedics at the scene and not have to wait to be asked to do so by AMT. A few dedicated fire department ambulances staffed with advanced life support equipment carrying PFD paramedics would be very useful as the Matrix report from 2004 indicated. If they do these common sense things in Joliet, Rockford, and many cities in the US why not Peoria? The medical director would be active at IDPH in Springlfield as advocates for the firefighters and would meet with you, the city council, regarding policy decisions, so you could hear another voice rather than the two project medical directors you have heard from for the past two decades who have very close ties to AMT and OSF. Who would pay this physician who acts as medical director for the PFD? No one. It would be voluntary so there wouldn't exist even the possilbity of conflict of interest regarding this very important job.