A lifesaving choice for Plymouth Township voters

Jul. 26, 2024  PLYMOUTH VOICE.

Plymouth Michigan News

OPINION

As Plymouth Township residents quickly approach the Aug. 6, Primary Election we should take a deep breath, step back a few years, and reflect on what is the most important key element for any community.

One thing we all agree upon is that elections are a time to consider the issues you care about and decide which best substantive candidate you choose to support.

Only if we move past the social media rhetoric and false campaign claims can we judge the candidates based on merit and look at leadership qualities and experience they would bring to office.

In our opinion nothing tops public safety

Let’s focus on the inside story of Plymouth Township Fire Department.

There’s no question, during the 2016 election public safety and securing the township fire department was the paramount issue.

Scores of residents and citizens groups worked tirelessly for months alongside the candidates to push for badly needed big changes. The results were a landslide-the most contentious and expensive campaigns known to this township when equally informed voters swept clean all of the executive positions of the Board of Trustees.

The 2012 decision of Plymouth Township officials to cut fire department staffing in half and close the Lake Pointe Fire Station became an object of heated debate. Informed sources claimed the move was punitive.

Records show that in 2012, tenacious board members repeatedly refused to place the referenced public safety millage on a ballot despite signed petitions from residents. Following lawsuits by a grass-roots public action group, the board members were ordered by a circuit court judge to allow the public to vote on the issue. In response, board members increased the requested 1.0 millage to 10 mills, an amount even the activists were forced to vigorously oppose at the polls.

Five years later, after massive layoffs and cutting the department’s full-time staff by half, Lake Pointe Fire Station No. 2 was re-opened. Lake Pointe is the largest  subdivision, with some 850 homes.

The re-opening to the Lake Pointe station saw a short-lived informal fire department agreement with Northville Township that pumped some life blood into the department. However, reduced staffing levels still make it difficult to meet NFPA minimum standards for safety and response times.

Today, the township’s three fire stations often must be “browned-out” when there are not enough staff due to sickness, days-off and vacation schedules to adhere to the required national standards in the case of medical emergencies, such as critical cardiac arrest.

Experts agree that four responders, at least two trained in Advance Life Support and two trained in Basic Life Support, are the minimum required to provide the necessary life saving measures to cardiac arrest victims.

Recognized national studies predicting cardiac arrest survival rates link response time to the probability of survival. According to the national model, in the best-case scenario a cardiac arrest victim has a 67 percent chance of survival within the critical first 6 minutes.

An important factor in the survival of the patient, experts say, is not only how quickly paramedics arrive at the scene, but also how quickly they begin administering critically needed treatment.

Advance Life Support versus Basic Life Support

When it comes to outside ambulance service, not every ambulance that responds to township calls for assistance are there on-board certified paramedics, nor are all the ambulance units dispatched equipped for Advance Life Support, frequently coming from a host of metropolitan locations.

Basic Life Support is a set of life-saving medical procedures performed in the early stages of an emergency. These resuscitation techniques are generally administered by a first responder, healthcare provider, or any individual on the scene who has basic medical training.

Advanced Life Support as the name indicates, it takes BLS techniques to the next level with more sophisticated interventions and procedures. The goal is to stabilize critical patients who may have suffered a life-threatening event like cardiac arrest, acute coronary syndrome, or stroke, while preparing them for transport to a hospital

All Plymouth Township professional firefighters are full-time employees, fully trained and licensed paramedics. Township firefighters will tell you they need more paramedics and the ability to transport all patients to hospital, especially cardiac arrest patients, in order to maintain critical continuity of care and meet minimum national standards.

Patient transfer during a pre-hospital emergency medical event is tricky business. Professionals will attest, during the transfer of patients, both ambulance and hospital emergency service professionals need to exchange necessary, precise, and complete information for an effective handover. Time is of essence. Some factors threaten a quality handover such as excessive caseload, patients with multiple comorbidities, limited past medical history, and frequent interruptions. Area professional fire departments, like Canton, Northville Township, and Livonia perform 100 percent of patient transports to hospitals.

Plymouth Township Supervisor Kurt Heise

Plymouth Township Supervisor Kurt Heise has the endorsement of IAFF Local 1496 Firefighters Union, and deservedly so after working hard to save and enhance the township fire department during his past two terms.

Heise has worked to facilitate the purchase of new fire engines, ambulances and a critically needed fire ladder truck. Heise fostered the effort to build a new state-of-the-art Lake Pointe Fire Station No. 2, in 2025, and has recognized and supported public safety budgets to fully fund both fire and police departments. Heise will tell you he’s not done yet, and is in favor of expanding the department’s paramedic team to eliminate handing off of sick patients.

Voters need to pay close attention this election and look at the candidates who have endorsed and best supported our public safety departments and their budgets over the years, and those who have not.

For these reasons The Plymouth Voice supports and endorses Kurt Heise for re-election in 2024.

Plymouth Voice.