Advocates For EMS

[Goose 188]

I had posted this once before here but it go no attention so I'm going to throw it up again. If you care about the future of EMS i implore you to go to the website!

www.advocatesforems.org

I urge everyone to go there and look around the website. It is the only DC based firm that lobbies on EMS's behalf - that i know of. I have been a long time member and urge everyone to browse their website, if you can't become a member forward the link to your administration - maybe your agency can become a member. Also, they provide template letters urging your members of the house and senate to become members of the EMS Caucus they have created. Attached is their legislative agenda in MS word .doc format.

Again, i strongly urge you to check this organization out. They are the only organization that i know of that is fighting on capital hill to get EMS the recognition it needs!

Advocates_Legislative_Agenda_White_Paper__2_.doc

Edited January 20, 2009 by Goose

[medic25 0]

I will second this support for Advocates For EMS. I'm on my way home from the NAEMSP (National Association of EMS Physicians) meeting right now and spoke with a lot of the leadership from Advocates, and they are doing an awful lot for the EMS community. They are lobbying for things like greatly increasing the funding for EMS, providing LODD benefits for non-fire EMS workers, and correcting the Ryan White Act error. One of their founders this morning told us how it first started at a meeting in 2001. He was in a room with a lot of big wigs and kept pushing for EMS support when a fire chief told him "stop talking about EMS; this money only goes for guns and hoses". That was how Advocates was born; please support them!

[x635 4,066]

This is a great group. Both the NAEMT and NREMT have lobbying arms as well, however they aren't very effective.

There was going to be a whole EMS branch of the Federal Goverment a few years back, but it didn't go through after the IAFF lobbied against it because they percieved that FD's would lose funding to EMS. The IAFF has a very strong lobby in Washington that also influences EMS decisions. Maybe with the new adminstration we can bring EMS into 2009 in DC.