Orthodox Jewish ambulance service faces fight from L.A. fire department, and a powerful fire union
Hatzalah, a volunteer-driven ambulance company ... whose name in Hebrew means “rescue.”
“These volunteers are spread throughout the communities that they serve in a way that they’re able to respond unbelievably quickly,” said Rabbi Chaim Amster. Across the United States, independent chapters of this type of Jewish emergency response service have formed agreements with city agencies to respond, free of charge, to emergencies.
But Hatzolah, as the organization is sometimes alternatively spelled, has long struggled to gain traction in Los Angeles, where the city fire department is the exclusive provider of emergency ambulance services. The organization has applied to Los Angeles County for an ambulance license that would allow it to transport patients during non-emergencies, said Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency.
Hatzolah’s ultimate goal is to be permitted by the city to transport patients and respond with ambulances to emergency calls using lights and sirens — a practice called Code 3 — just like the fire department. But this has been met with strong pushback from the Los Angeles Fire Department and its firefighters’ union, which both point to their agency’s jurisdiction and argue that allowing another entity to respond to emergencies creates a public safety issue.
State law says county emergency medical services agencies can create “exclusive operating areas,” like the city of Los Angeles, where ambulance providers can operate. The county can either conduct a competitive process to select providers or select existing providers — such as city fire departments — that have provided these services consistently for decades. While there are 31 licensed ambulance companies in the city of Los Angeles, the Department of Transportation says only the local fire department can respond Code 3 to 911-type calls.
Full article at:
https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-hatzolah-20190210-story.html