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There is a loud labor scandal at the Bryansk city emergency medical service station. The chairman of the local trade union organization, ambulance driver Igor Mosin, who had long publicly and consistently criticized the actions of his superiors, was fired. The formal reason, according to the activist, was an accidental overconsumption of fuel. The ambulance management denies the accusations against them and asks not to blame the mirror.
Igor Mosin, already a former ambulance driver, worked at the station for 8 years. He was fired on his birthday.
“During a call, when the medical team was on call, I warmed up the interior,” says Mosin. “And they blame me for all this because I don’t save fuel.”
Mosin admits excessive fuel consumption, even for the needs of the patient, but says that the reasons are deeper. The man was a member of the station's union and openly criticized management. He demanded to pay back five months of wages (which is a total of 9 million Russian rubles), to add more cars for field trips, to ease the work schedule, and to help those who were previously laid off.
“He began to be constantly followed, constantly counting gasoline and mileage. It is clear that if you begin to speak out against the leadership, you must be as pure as a pioneer, so that you cannot find fault,” says Alexander Kupriyanov, head of the “Action” trade union branch.
The head physician of the Bryansk city ambulance station, Mikhail Mazur, in a conversation with Belsat, assured that no one fired Mosin for excessive consumption of gasoline. The formal reasons are indicated in the order statement.
“This is smoking in the car, this is a violation of traffic rules, this is driving under a brick, and so on,” says Mikhail Mazur. “Because he, white and fluffy, wanted to warm a stroke patient, we don’t kick anyone out of the Ambulance for this, believe me.”
Under the same Article 81 of the Labor Code - that is, for violation of discipline - another driver, Alexander Filippov, was also fired. His experience is 22 years, the last three of which, in his words, he is under constant pressure... for honesty.
“In 2014, I told the main thing – stop stealing, stop stealing,” says Filippov.
Dissenting workers point not only to unfair dismissals, from their point of view, but also to the generally tense working conditions at the station: both for drivers and doctors.
“The guys take all the risk. The cars are slipping, the fuel consumption is low, the yards are not cleaned, plus cars are abandoned in the yards for nothing, and it is very difficult for the ambulance driver to get through and complete his task,” says Igor Mosin.
The head physician replies that the station has no sanctions from the labor inspectorate, and the number of calls per shift does not exceed the fifteen established by the Ministry of Health. But, in general, work on the ambulance, says Mikhail Mazur, is like that - night, operational and complex. But should it be unbearable?
Tatyana Reut
Quality No. 1 for an Ambulance specialist is composure. This can be learned, everything comes with experience. Six months - a year of work on the brigade - and there was no trace of the former shaking and fear. The only fear that remains forever is when something bad happens to the children. Then it's really scary.
It’s not difficult to get to an ambulance; the education of an emergency medical technician, paramedic or medical assistant is enough. nurse anesthetists. It is difficult to stay on the ambulance, or even more correctly to say, to become one. We don’t have random people, even if we do, they don’t linger. You need to be saturated to the bones with the spirit of traveling medicine and truly love your profession. Sometimes this will take a long time. Often those who left return with the words: “Well, I can’t sit in the office.” These people are really sick. One doctor I know is so sick of it that he has put together an incredibly cool collection of 80 different toy models of ambulances. A true fan!
Black humor in our profession through the word. At home sometimes they even fight about it. But such jokes are most likely only among us, colleagues, although sometimes others understand them too. Police officers and firefighters respond to our humor more often; we often encounter them. It’s just that humor is also an outlet for a paramedic. Personally, I play KVN, in our city there is even a whole medical KVN league, medical teams play in it. institutions. The paradox is that I do not play for the ambulance, but for the team I organized, “Team Morgues,” where we practice so-called humor on the verge of a foul.
In the ambulance there are people with two types of education: secondary education - a paramedic. The paramedic is the main employee of the emergency medical service; most likely, it is he who will come to your call, and doctors who graduated from medical universities are in the minority. I am an EMS doctor in a general medical team. This means that I handle calls of a potentially higher category of complexity: chest pain, arrhythmias, comas, traffic accidents, opiate overdoses, strokes. But most often, I, like other EMS employees, visit bored grandmothers, drunk unemployed citizens, and people without a fixed place of residence. I listen to their threats/complaints about health that arose 20 years ago/intimate conversations/complaints about children and grandchildren/hard life, etc., and then I figure out how to translate these social problems into a medical channel and describe them in a language understandable to doctors at insurance companies, so that everyone my departure was paid for. Only every second or third patient is actually a person with health problems.
Of course, people with a sense of humor work in the ambulance. These jokes are sometimes not just black, but the blackest. Without them, colossal mental and moral tension would simply break out in ugly forms, and when everything is ridiculed and reprimanded at once, it no longer harms, and may even end up in the golden collection of internal memes of the substation for many years. Most of these jokes come from what we saw on calls and subsequently they remain understandable and funny only to a narrow circle of colleagues - these jokes are not exported, since they can either shock an ordinary person or remain incomprehensible even after lengthy explanations.
People working in ambulances are reserved and brave; most people like the adrenaline that the profession gives. Personally, all my life since childhood I have been a very emotionally cold person, calmly reacting to other people’s pain, anger, etc. I know that panic and tears will not help matters, and the main thing in critical situations is a cold, detached mind and knowledge. And a certain amount of courage - without it we have nothing to do. It was very psychologically uncomfortable for the first year of work, but then I just got used to it. A person generally gets used to everything. Although it still happens that I feel scared for a moment, it gives me what many people go to work in the ambulance for - adrenaline.
In the ambulance, of course, there are random people, but there are also enough people who care about their work and their patients. I actually wanted to be a rescuer at the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but due to illness I could not get there. In general, EMS is not the most “criminal” place in the medical hierarchy of specialties, quite the opposite. Working without career growth, it is difficult for an emergency medical technician to retrain for another specialization. It’s a little easier for a paramedic, but again the choice is not very large. They say that if you don’t quit after a year, you’ll never quit. This is wrong. Some leave after 10 or 15 years, even in a profession that has nothing to do with medicine.
The ambulance also employs people who know how to cope with panic. Panic is a state when something happens that you don’t know and haven’t encountered before. Of course, at the beginning of the work it was very scary when the patient’s condition deteriorates, and you are alone with him. It's scary to realize your own helplessness. Then experience accumulates, knowledge is acquired and fear goes away. Fear will not go away until you know how to deal with it. And you can fight only with knowledge. Just recently I was thinking that the unknown is equal to fear.
We have a lot of women. But if it were up to me, I would completely ban women from working in ambulances. This is exhausting work; people need to be selected for it the same way they are selected for the Special Forces. The pay here is normal, but not so much that you don’t think about part-time work - often people don’t take care of themselves, work for a day, and then go to a second and third job. And women are also on the fourth - that is, home. Sooner or later some disease may develop.
Hello, dear blog readers! Many queries on the Internet are related specifically to ambulance: “how to call from a mobile phone,” “how long should an ambulance take,” “what to do if it doesn’t arrive,” and so on. We decided to make the task easier and make you an article on how to call an ambulance and what to do in other situations.
Call number
Everyone knows the emergency number - 03 . But many people get confused when a call needs to be made from a mobile phone.
Let’s say right away that you can call an ambulance from any phone, even with a zero balance, and the call itself is free. Numbers to call from mobile phones:
- Beeline – 003
- Megafon – 03 or 030
- MTS – 030
- YOTA – 030
- TELE 2 – 103
There is also a single emergency number - 112 . It is assumed that a call to it can be made even without a SIM card in the phone. However, the number has not yet been introduced in all regions of our country.
What's in the ambulance?
The so-called linear brigade is most often sent to the call. Such an ambulance has everything to provide first aid for minor cases: high blood pressure, minor injuries, minor burns, abdominal pain, etc.
But in addition to this, each line team has the necessary equipment for resuscitation: a portable electrocardiograph and defibrillator, devices for artificial ventilation of the lungs and inhalation anesthesia, an electric suction pump, an oxygen cylinder, a resuscitation kit.
In serious cases, a special “reanimobile” is sent to the place of call.
How quickly should the ambulance arrive?
According to new Russian regulations, an ambulance must be at the scene of an incident 20 minutes after it is called.
In large cities where several ambulances operate, this standard is met. Exceptions include any force majeure circumstances.
But in small towns, where there is often only one ambulance, this standard may not be observed. Any complaints regarding this matter should be addressed to your local health department.
Where does he take it?
Whether the patient needs hospitalization, the ambulance team decides on the spot, based on the symptoms, within two to three minutes.
The hospitalization department decides where to hospitalize, based on the profile of the disease and the availability of beds in institutions. The patient does not have the right to choose a doctor or medical institution, since according to the law he needs help urgently, and the choice can take up precious time.
If you still think that you are being taken to the wrong place, then you should dial 03 again and ask to be connected with the head doctor of the station, and discuss this issue with him.
What to do if it doesn't go?
If they refuse to send a team to you, which is unlikely, the solution is simple - call the police. According to the Criminal Code, this falls under articles 124 “Failure to provide assistance to a patient” and 125 “Leaving in danger.” Police officers will contact the medical facility and help resolve the problem.
How is an ambulance different from an emergency room?
Two years ago, ambulance and urgent care are two different services.
But people today don’t know which of them and how to call. So let's figure it out:
- An ambulance comes to a patient only when there is a real threat to his life, that is, in emergency cases. She rushes to the scene of car accidents where people have suffered, heart attacks, strokes, childbirth, etc.
- They will send an ambulance if you are sick, but there is no threat to life: with fever, pressure surges, headaches, acute respiratory infections, flu, etc.
To call an ambulance or emergency room, you need to call the numbers that we indicated at the beginning of the article. The dispatcher will accept the call. You need to inform the dispatcher:
- the phone number from which you are calling (in case the call is dropped, then they will call you back)
- what happened, any complaints
- gender of the patient, date of birth, address, where to go by car
If, based on your words, the dispatcher decides that the patient requires emergency assistance, he will send an ambulance. She should be in place within 20 minutes. And, if necessary, he will take the patient to the hospital.
If the situation is “tolerable,” they will send an ambulance from the clinic. She will arrive within two hours and help the patient at home. She does not have rights to emergency hospitalization.
In words, everything seems logical. But in reality, it happens that an ambulance is sent to a person who needs to be taken urgently, for example, to intensive care. We have to place a new ambulance call. Valuable time is wasted. To prevent this from happening, tell the dispatcher clearly and in detail about the patient’s condition.
Especially if the pressure is very high, there are attacks of fainting, difficulty breathing, pain in the sternum. These symptoms can be deadly. You cannot do without emergency medical care.
We hope you won't need either car. And for this, of course, it is better to monitor your health and lead a correct lifestyle. First of all, you should get rid of bad habits in the form of using alcohol and smoking. The following video courses will help you with this:
- “Quitting Alcohol Addiction in 12 Steps”
- "It's easy to quit smoking"
Have you used ambulance services? Did the car always arrive on time? Tell us about your cases in the comments.
Additional information on this topic can be found in our articles:
— How to start leading a healthy lifestyle? Breaking down the basics
See you soon!
Already a year Alexandra(name changed) works as a nurse at an emergency medical care substation in Khabarovsk. During this time, she accepted more than a thousand calls and saved many lives. A small and fragile-looking girl wears a uniform five (!) sizes too large and carries a heavy stretcher with patients. Wherever her service took her: to fight gangsters in barracks, and to luxury apartments with pregnant women. She spoke about her work routine and patients in a frank interview with AiF.ru.
From call to call
The standard shift of doctors and paramedics lasts 24 hours. To get a rate, you need to work every three days. However, everyone here works beyond the norm because they want to have a normal salary. For example, a paramedic who works two hours (about 12 days a month) or simply lives at a substation receives from 42 to 45 thousand. Just enough to buy sedatives and forget. The teams also include nurses and nurses. These are mostly medical students. They work a little less: a day on weekends and 15 hours (from 17:00 to 8:00) on weekdays.
At best, there are five crews at our substation. One intensive care unit, which responds to emergency calls, three line ones (serving everything) and one children’s room. But it is not always there, because there is only one pediatrician, and if he has a day off, then there is no one to work. There is a constant shortage of personnel in the ambulance, especially doctors. We only have five of them. In addition to the pediatrician, there is also a therapist, two cardiologists and a resuscitator. The rest are paramedics. They often work as the first numbers, and the second ones are medical students. True, on weekdays students are not always able to combine study and work, so part of the time their partners go to calls alone. But this has to be done, because there are not many people willing to “plow” in an ambulance.
Now there is some kind of madhouse going on at the substation. Many employees went on vacation in August, so only two line crews and one intensive care team remained working. They have to bounce from call to call. The accepted norm of calls per day, when the doctor is still more or less alive, is 12-14 visits. But in winter we had to serve 33 requests. Sometimes there was downtime, people had to wait for an ambulance, but not for long, about 15 minutes longer than usual. According to the rules, we must travel for a maximum of 20 minutes, and the service area is small, so we have time.
"Popular" diseases
The most “popular” calls are pressure and temperature. They also treat intestinal poisoning, suspected appendicitis and injuries. The emergency room is generally our “favorite” place to travel. It often happens that people call the dispatcher, do not explain anything, but simply say that they feel bad. And then we begin to rack our brains over which team to send: line or intensive care.
We often go to “rescue” people from osteochondrosis. This is not what the ambulance should do, but no one, of course, cares. A man has a pain in the area of his heart, and he calls us because he is sure that he is having a heart attack. In fact, if something happens to the heart, then it will not be the heart itself that will hurt, but the area behind the sternum, the shoulder, the shoulder blade, and the pit of the stomach. And pain in the heart manifests itself either as osteochondrosis or intercostal neuralgia. We start explaining this to people, but they continue to say that they are dying and insist on an ECG. But in such a situation, we do not take a cardiogram; the most we do is inject a painkiller and suggest calling a therapist from the clinic to prescribe treatment.
Grandmothers love to call us and complain about the pressure. Although they are often themselves to blame for the fact that it has jumped. They don’t monitor their weight or nutrition, and they also like to eat salty foods, although they know very well that this should not be done. They skip taking medications, do not control their regimen, and “plow” in the summer at their dachas in the sun. Of course, then their blood pressure is under 200. And then the grannies call us, yelling that they are having a stroke or heart attack, and then they go out again to bend their backs in their favorite garden beds.
When to call an ambulance?
By the way, there is a list of regulations that states which calls an ambulance should respond to and which ones it should not. But either the population does not know about its existence, or they simply don’t care. The document can be viewed on the Internet. It says, for example, that we should arrive when called “with a fever” only if there is also vomiting, convulsions or a rash. One thing is a must. In fact, it often turns out that you arrive, and there is 37.3, cough and runny nose. In this case, what people want from the ambulance is unclear. We are emergency care and do not have the right to prescribe treatment; this should be done by doctors at the clinic. And people say: “Have you come in vain? Write something down." And if you don’t do this, they then write complaints. So sometimes you have to prescribe medications and give recommendations. It's good if a doctor does it. I would not like to speak badly of paramedics, but in terms of their knowledge of drugs and medicines, they are very different from doctors. But they work very well with their hands: they place catheters, IVs, inject, make bandages and wash out the stomach.
We have one female paramedic who, to be honest, is not very smart. He confuses medications, knows nothing, gives ancient advice. Once, as part of a line brigade, she responded to a call for “stomach pain.” Without understanding it, she injected the patient with two ampoules of ketorol, which was absolutely forbidden to do, since she had an ulcer. And the drug caused bleeding. That’s it, two hours later a resuscitation team was called to the same apartment (I worked there that day). They arrived, and the girl was already rinsing with blood. We quickly injected her and took her to the hospital. And everything happened because of the negligence of the previous team.
"It's hard not to become hardened"
Very often we “treat” homeless people, because the ambulance receives a lot of calls from well-wishers who find drunk homeless people under the fence, and then tell us to pick them up and save them. And who else will come to any hole and pull them out of the ditch? Yes, only us! When I just started working, there was such a case: I went on a call with a very good doctor, still of Soviet training. She was a woman about 60 years old who had worked as an ambulance worker most of her life. It was winter outside, we drove up to some bench where a tipsy homeless man was sitting and complaining of pain in his arm. So this woman took him into the car to warm up, injected him with painkillers, treated him to a bun and asked where he lived. We took him straight to the garages where he spends the night, because it was wildly cold outside, and the man was dressed very lightly. I remember this struck me so much that after so many years of work the doctor still had a kind heart. Yes, we need to take example from such people and erect monuments to them!
It’s hard not to become hardened in our profession. And all because it’s usually abnormal people who call. There are 90 percent of them. I will say this: the adequate ones sit at home and die quietly because they are embarrassed to call an ambulance. Rude, but true.
One winter at three o'clock in the morning I am with a paramedic Seryozhey I came to a call for “ear pain.” The intercom turned out to be inoperative, and no one met us on the street. We had to stand at the entrance in the cold, wait for the dispatcher to call the patient so that she would come down for us. After 15 minutes, a drunken body fell out of the door and began to cover us with obscenities: “What... took you so long and why didn’t you open it yourself.” Although we arrived quickly, and, of course, we couldn’t have the key. We went into her apartment, where her drunken roommate was sitting. Already in the room, the woman started yelling about how her ear hurt and how she hated us. Without stopping the screams, she attacked Seryozha, who, by the way, was half her size, and began to shake him, saying: “Why is your suit blue? Doctors only wear white coats.” He managed to escape. But the concert didn't end there. When we asked the woman to fill out the summons documents, she started throwing them at us. In general, we barely made it out of there.
It’s good that I worked with a man then. Another time I was on a shift with a female doctor, she was only 28 years old. We responded to a call at some barracks, where a man was killed in a fight. While she was examining the body, a criminal man came up to me and said: “It’s dangerous to carry so much gold on yourself. If you weren’t an ambulance officer, I would quickly film all your tricks.”
We are often rude and harassed. During the shift there will definitely be a call where they will throw mud at you. Of course, the paramedic is sometimes joked: “I could hit this goat in the head with a box right now.” But, of course, no one will stun people with anything. Firstly, the patient is always right, and secondly, we always carry a heavy medical box and a cardiograph with us, and also carry something for defense... No, we just rely on fate and luck.
But the opposite is the case. One day at 6:00 a school life safety teacher came to the substation. He apologized for disturbing me and politely asked me to take my blood pressure because he wasn’t feeling well. I measure, and he has 220. He’s all sticky and cold. Basically, the person had a heart attack. And because of his modesty, he was embarrassed to call an ambulance in the evening and suffered until the morning. I gave him an ECG, gave him the necessary medications and sent him to the hospital. But if he hadn’t shown up on time, he would have died at home.
"Unloved Contingent"
My least favorite group is probably pregnant women. They think that an ambulance is a taxi, which exists to deliver people to the maternity hospital. And there are so many challenges, and now you need a ride. I understand if a woman lives somewhere very far away or does not have money for transport, but most often we are called by ladies registered in elite houses with a high fence and security. You walk into their three-room mansion, and next to the woman in labor sits her husband, as if nothing had happened, who has a car, or even two, in the garage downstairs. Can't he take it himself? Of course, here I am talking about pregnant women, whose labor should begin on time and proceed without complications, who can easily get to the hospital themselves without our unfortunate ambulance.
It also often happens that people see an ambulance under their windows and think: “While I’m here, let them take a look at me too, take my temperature and blood pressure, otherwise I’ll suddenly feel bad.” And they call the dispatcher. This has happened to us more than once: when we were just leaving the house, a call came from the same place, maybe even from a neighboring apartment.
It's your job!
I often hear this phrase from people: “Staying up all night is your job.” Like a spit in the soul. They have no idea what they are talking about. Yesterday I started my shift at five in the evening. At 20:00 we have a driver shift change. It is assumed that during this time (15-20 minutes) the team should have dinner. In fact, the following happened: at 20:05 we received a call and urgently went to it. The next time we arrived at the substation only at 12 at night. And we had just gone to the toilet when they called us again. So we squandered until five in the morning. Then there was about an hour and a half of rest, but sleep did not come, because too many difficult calls were served. And we left again... And does anyone else dare to say “your work”? I come home tired as a dog. I fall on the sofa, take sleeping pills so as not to think about anything bad, not to digest what happened during the shift, and lie there the whole day. With us, everyone forgets as best they can. Some take sedatives, others drink on weekends, and those who smoke empty two packs per shift.
As my loved one often jokes, the most difficult thing in such a job is to survive. And this is true, especially during the day when you don’t sleep, barely eat and rarely visit the toilet. There are paramedics who ask to go to the restroom right when they are called to apartments. I also have my own additional difficulties related to my build. Since I am short, and with this work I have lost weight to size 40, difficulties often arise with transporting patients: it is difficult to carry them. And in the courtyards where we come, everything is often filled with cars. When an ambulance tries to park, some freak from a nearby car will inevitably yell: “Why are you parking your car here?” Should we leave the car in the neighboring yard and carry all the equipment, and then a person, on our backs?
And with work clothes, a funny situation arose: for me, they only found a uniform in size 50.
It's not all in vain!
I believe that the entire primary link of medicine in Russia rests on the ambulance service. But soon there will be nothing to stand on, because Soviet-trained doctors are already retiring, and young specialists are not eager to take their places. Pediatricians come to us after college, stay for literally four months, and then quit. Only those who have hopelessness remain: the paramedics. They still can't find a better job.
And here’s another reason why you shouldn’t wait for new personnel. Now the following rule has been introduced: after the sixth year, all medical students graduate from universities as primary care physicians. They are not eligible to become emergency physicians. To do this, they need to complete residency for two more years. What else is there to learn? Only if you introduce training, like the astronauts: train, pour ice water on them in the cold, don’t let them sleep or feed them, so they get used to it.But no matter how bad things are at work, you still get moral satisfaction from helping people. Although they don’t appreciate it, you know that you tried your best when you lowered their blood pressure and prescribed treatment. And that everything is not in vain.
We all carry our cross. For some it is a disease, for others it is a struggle with the disease. Some people are dealing with the death of a loved one, while others are trying to cope with it. And throwing off the old cross, we are already in a hurry to put a new one on our hump. This is how people are made...
People. I'm so tired of them. I couldn’t harden myself, isolate myself from the redneck world with all its pain with a mask of irony and sarcasm, I didn’t learn to forget, I didn’t find peace in the faces of those I helped.
The cemetery is behind. The most paradoxical thing is memories. Memory is Pandora's box. You cross the road, stop at a red light, squeeze the hand of a child, and remember another, a stranger, spread out on the wet asphalt, still alive, but already halfway to eternity. The pain is unbearable, he groans, and I am afraid that I will kill him with anesthetics before we have time to arrive at the hospital.
They say that smoking kills. This is of course true.
But it’s better to let the cigarette kill me after this, it at least dulls the desire to die a little. Tribute to the dead. Let's smoke and remember. What kind of nobility can we talk about when you walk on the edge and periodically look over the edge? Give yourself a plus for saved lives and grow shameful wings? There are no noble ones in the ambulance, in the form in which people expect it. It would be too ridiculous and false.
There are no chosen ones or special ones in the ambulance, there are people whose hump loves their cross, their martyrdom, there are people who, seeing the injustice and cruelty of this world, every duty prove that they are stronger and show the whole world “the fact”.
And this is also everyone’s personal choice.
I went into the measured, well-fed, devoid of feats life of an office clerk. Yes, this happens too. Sometimes it makes me sick. But this nausea is no stronger than what I felt looking at all that decay and degradation. People kill themselves, for the most part.
Now I don't see any of this. My nerves are not taut like guitar strings and do not make shrill sounds at the slightest touch. My loved ones exhaled, they will no longer have to tiptoe after my night shifts. I'm bored. I eat away my boredom with books, devouring them one by one, this is my salvation from attacks of green melancholy.
But nothing has changed, they were there before. How to be treated is everyone’s personal choice.
Everything goes and it is also. I used to have the same dreams in which I was performing CPR on another deserter. In these dreams, I was able to bring him back to life every time. Now I see everything from the outside, I am a spectator. Someone else is rocking someone's dead body, fighting for life, I'm intensely watching every action, I'm rooting for these strong hands, on which nothing less, but everything depends.
I'm no longer a doctor. Everyone has their own ceiling. And if you have grown up to it and rest your head, you need to leave this room into another space, where you can straighten up to your full height and stretch your stiff limbs. But this is also everyone’s personal choice.
