Medics to have stronger narcotics

D.C. paramedics by summer expect to get what their counterparts in area jurisdictions have had for decades: access to life-saving medications.

The decision to equip ambulances with narcotics comes after the department announced plans last year to run comprehensive background checks on every employee.

Battalion Chief Kenneth Crosswhite said the stocking of drugs could not have gone forward without the background checks.

“It could not have; it should not have,” Chief Crosswhite said.

The department has considered putting the drugs on ambulances for more than five years but held off because of administrative roadblocks or fears of theft.

Dr. Michael Williams, the department’s medical director, said the benefits of stocking ambulances with narcotics such as morphine and Valium far outweigh the risk of theft or abuse of those drugs.

“I’m much more concerned about not providing pain relief or not being able to break a seizure,” he said. “The nation’s capital can’t be the last big jurisdiction to have pain relief.”

Dr. Williams said the background checks would help fire officials who were “trying to make sure we don’t put temptation in front of individuals” who may have had drug problems in the past.

He said the background checks were a way of “identifying them and saying, ‘You probably shouldn’t be handling narcotics if you were convicted for X, Y and Z, 10 years ago.’ ”

National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians President Jerry Johnston said morphine can minimize heart failure and Valium can break potentially brain-damaging seizures.

“If you don’t have it, you can’t treat a seizure,” Mr. Johnston said. “You basically are helpless to watch them seize.”

Mr. Johnston said the use of narcotics on ambulances is “very common” and he was not aware of a jurisdiction that does not use them.

Fairfax County paramedics have been carrying narcotics for at least 24 years, and workers in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have had them for about 30 years.

Maj. Chauncey Bowers, a paramedic with the Prince George’s fire department, said the drugs have improved patient treatment since the county started using them in 1977.

He also said security systems for the drugs are relatively easy to maintain and he mostly dismissed fears of thefts.

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