HomeMy WebLinkAbout1976 06-30 Paramedic program gets national award THE REVIEW • ® )upt.e -30>(q 7(,
Paramedic program gets national award
"Maplewood is a town of 29,000 not far tion required enabling legislation at the physiology and medical terminology." competence grows,the Maplewood police
from St. Paul whose police department state level. Maplewood got its go-ahead The article describes training of the are by no means an elitist outfit: at the
has made exciting national news for when a bill authorizing its paramedics officers in venapunctures, drawing and scene of any emergency,one or another of
having changed the whole concept of what was passed in the final hours of the 1975 administering intravenous, in- the community's four volunteer fire
a cop does. Instead of projecting the session of the state legislature. tramuscular, subcutaneous and in- departments are ready and able to lend
classic image of the man with a revolver, "Five Maplewood policemen comprised tercardiac injections "in the field," in support."
a billy club and a jaundiced view of the pilot program, and a rigorous cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the The article also explains that"from the
human nature, Maplewood's policemen program it was.The trainees were sent to ability to interpret cardiac arrhythmias beginning,community support has been
have become servants of the sick,the hurt St.Paul Ramsey Hospital for five months and handling of all conditions not related wholehearted. The number of calls for
and the desperate. They are trained of intensive paramedic training under the to cardiology. medical assistance has increased
paramedics, the first sworn police of- tutelege of many medical specialists. "When the Maplewood officers have steadily."
ficers in the U.S.to take on this unusual Entering a new realm of public ser- completed their training and begun active It concludes"Without question...the
community responsibility. Maplewood vice,"the Maplewood entry notes, "and service as paramedics, they still aren't 1976 Awards Jury not only congratulates
now has nine certified paramedics on a not being sure of what was to come,ex- finished with the learning experience. Maplewood for taking a leadership role in,
police force of 40 officers." perienced officers plunged into an Each paramedic is required to spend an enhancing the public service purposes of
That's the way an article in Environ- academic atmosphere averaging six days average of two days a month at Ramsey its police officers, but also hopes that
mental Monthly magazine reads this a week, 10 hours a day, receiving in- Hospital on continuing in-service other communities will follow
month.The magazine has selected 12 U.S. struction in such subjects as anatomy, training. And, though their medical Maplewood's paramedical example."
cities to receive"1976 Community Quality
of Life Awards."Maplewood has received
the award in the safety category.
Awards recipients were selected by a
panel of five jurors, including Eric B.
Outwater,deputy regional administrator
of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency; Laura Freed, editor of three
publications; Walter Sachs, executive
vice-president of Rahenkamp, Sachs
Wells and Associates,a Philadelphia land
planning firm; Rev. John Evenson,
director of the Office for Interpretation of
the Lutheran Church in America's
Division for Mission in North America
and Sherry Koehler,executive director of
the Environmental Action Coalition.
Among other winners of the awards
were Baltimore, youth incentive
programs, housing, oedestrianism;
Inkster, Mich., parks and recreation;.
Edmonds,Wash.,citizens action and so
on. Maplewood is the only Minnesota
community to win one of the awards and
receive the only award given in the safety
category.
The Environmental Monthly article
continued to praise the program,saying,
"As might be imagined such a
revolutionary change in the police funs-