The Citizens to Save MAST made a lot of waves this year in an effort to keep the widely-acclaimed public-private partnership out of City Hall clutches and away from control of Union Boss Louie Wright
However, there was one simple move made by proponents of the Fire Department power grab that made opposition blink. Members from within MAST weren't willing to take on Local 42 at the cost of their Union affiliation. In her most recent e-mail missive, Save Mast organizer Lesa Gonzalez explains her dilemma and withdrawal from opposition to the Fire Department.
"In light of the fact that the group, Save Mast has been declared a rival organization of the entire IAFF, at the bequest of Louie Wright, President of Firefighters Local 42, I will no longer be able to participate in activities of the group, Save Mast. A member has been recruited to bring internal union charges against me and out of fear of suffering severe financial repercussions as well as problems stemming from activities of certain fellow union members, I have chosen to go this route. I will no longer participate in the group Save Mast."Her note is kinda cryptic and certainly doesn't paint Local 42 members in a positive light.
However, what's most important is the message that it sends to Kansas City voters.
People who owe Local 42 anything won't be able to change the tactics of this political organization from the inside. Their political strength in Kansas City is simply too overwhelming.
To be fair, now that Gonzalez has given up I have to note that it makes a bit of sense to take ambulance service into the Fire Department if only because firefighters don't have much to do nowadays and their leadership knows that they either had to expand their services or face cutbacks given that there are simply fewer fires then in years past thanks to better construction.
However, it's easy to predict that this move will UNDOUBTEDLY bring lower citizen satisfaction numbers to the Fire Department not only because they'll be new to the gig and rumors abound of a MAST purge already in the planning stages but also because there will be a radical change of (highly rated) ambulance service in the metro over time and people think ambulance service under the Fire Dept. will make it free . . . Which is not the case and the first bill Kansas City resident see via the Fire Dept. will cause their popularity to tank. Seriously, look for the labeling issue to be a sticking point as it seems unavoidable that Kansas City will play a bigger role in U.S. Healthcare problems.
TKC Warning: The SAVE MAST effort could continue if community members feel inclined to continue the fight. The strongest arguments to keep MAST intact were always based on concerns from KC residents and not inter-union squabbles. However, this is just another great example of how local politics keeps important issues away from voters and under the purview of backroom deals and City Hall horse trading.
Why can't Beth put a stop to this terror?
ReplyDelete(Is she still "taking care of" Sherwood Smith's extra hearty needs?)
This should not kill the MAST petition. There is citywide support for taking MAST out of Fire Department control. Or maybe, just maybe the fucking city council will fix their fiscal mistake. This will be a campaign issue.
ReplyDeleteWhere do the announced Mayoral candidates stand? funkidiot brought this upon us with the deal he made with the quasi-devil Louie Wright to save his political future. Yes, funkidiot believes in miracles, with a little help from his Wicca wife and Local 42 he thinks he'll be okay. So do any of the named candidates have the small courage to stand up for us and MAST?
Sorry Tony looks like you lost.
ReplyDeleteThis city is so ass backwards and corrupt that the police dept had to go under control of the state. KCFD had EMS back in the day but the service put seperate when 42 supports striked. KCFD did again not that many years ago, just called it a "BLUE FLU". 42 is nothing more than a money collecter thats crooked. They just had a mailed out vote for a union position which members circled their vote and mailed it back with no real oversight of vote tallies. Wright's re-vote for pres. had an open box and his supporters watching it. HA, we're all boned in this city, too bad some people outlive their usefulness.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the Pope telling elected officials who were also in service to The Church to get out of politics.
ReplyDeleteWhen the inmates are in charge of the asylum, we all have cause for widespread panic. "Quasi-Devil" Union Boss Louie Wright and his band of merry fucktards, have parlayed their waning political influence to its limit for this little merger of MAST into the KCFD. Every marker has been called in, every stop has been pulled, and Vegas Magician Lance Burton has been retained to consult on the smoke and mirrors.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most troubling fact about this issue is that Wright himself is reported to have no real clue as to how this takeover will unfold. He is said to have been reluctant to "show his cards" to his MAST members, when they asked the direct questions about the processes that they can expect in the coming months. He claimed that the "Strategic" plan hasnt even been formulated yet, and will be done thru a labor-managment negotiation.
Hold on to your loved ones KC! In the coming months, we citizens will be guinea pigs in Wrights trial-n-error EMS delivery system. Hopefully Chief Smokey Dyer will display the professionalism and leadership that he is known for and not allow a tyrant union boss to take the reigns on this issue. Obamas declaration of a Swine Flu emergency wont hold a candle to the mayhem caused by Wrights Meat Wagons rampantly running ripshod over the legs of the helpless and injured in KC. (Props to Jesse!)
People weren't recruited to file charges against Lesa, A line has been forming for many months. Louie didn't file for IAFF to make SAVE MAST a rival organization a member did. Lesa and others can point all their hate and discontent at Louie and the City Council, but the truth is. Louie Chief Dyer the Mayor and the City Council saved The People of MAST. I would like to thank those people for having the courage to stand up for what is right. And not listen to a few people who appear to have no facts but lots of opinions. MAST had failed, if left alone it would have collapsed then Tonys fans could have bitched that the council didn't do anything. You all key on the fact that no definitive plan has been put out yet. That is because the best minds in the industry are looking at this as a chance to do it right this time. Members of Labor are working in concert with Management, under the direction of Consultants, Overseen by one best Medical Directors in the country. Gone forever is a company that tried to make a profit on the worst day of a persons life. A company more worried about billing information than taking care of sick and injured people. Finally the City has seen that it must care for the care givers. Thank you for saving my life, I will be there to save yours.
ReplyDelete1128...LMAO...that is what I will be doing in 5 years when EMS in KC sucks. Thank God I am old and do not have to work here for 15 or 20 more years.
ReplyDeleteOh, and 1128...have the balls to use your name, you wimpy assed kool aid drinker.
ReplyDeleteCrazy, I think your crazy. Lesa the surest sign of insanity is not understanding how the world perceives you. You clearly don't understand that you are crazy. Louie is not your enemy he has been your greatest protector. The list of people wanting to file charges is so long he could no longer resist the the overwhelming crowd who wished to those file charges. So thank Louie for not being charged earlier. You wimpy assed kool aid drinker you.
ReplyDeleteYes sir Boss we is gonna do as you say Louie we ain't gonna do no bad we gonna stay in line.
ReplyDelete742, an yet you are still anonymous...
ReplyDeleteBring the charges on, all of you anonymous people from the union. I have paid union dues for over 17 years and attended union meetings, participated in political activities to help get people elected that the union endorsed. I LIVE IN KANSAS CITY MO, unlike the majority of my union brother and sisters from MAST who are calling me crazy. Crazy is charging a 17 year dues paying union member with bogus, trumped up charges. Looks good to the city and to others who hate unions!
ReplyDeleteHow is the city going to work around putting ALL mast employees on the health insurance and we aren't even city employees yet? So we get partical city benefits even though we aren't city employees. Employees are just trying to figure out who's ass it kiss to keep their job. Puppets every where and spreading lies.
ReplyDeleteyeah. We are going into the city benefits January 1st, is the word! Interesting since this takeover isn't supposed to take place until May 1. Bob Patrick, you and your Local 500 are just sitting back letting this happen? Guess Unions stick together, not always for the good of their members!
ReplyDeletemast members will be on a mirror plan of the city from jan 1 until 5-1. go to the meetings. get ur facts.
ReplyDeleteMAST is buying privite insurance for the 4 month gap between expiration of our current plan and 5-1-10 when we would be eligable for City benefits.FACT. We are not going to be getting any City benefit 1-1-10. FACT. I have never kissed any ass. FACT. The majority of people are behind this consolidation and see as an opertunity to make EMS better for the citizens as well as the providers.FACT. The profit that was made off of your car wreck, heart attack or even death, will no longer be charged. FACT. The proper resouces will be deployed, we will work as a team to make sure quality trained rested providers arrive at your side to care for you in your time of need. FACT. The money charged will help ofset the costs to the heneral tax funds. But no money will be spent to buy car allowances or golden parachutes. FACT.
ReplyDeleteAnon 5:23 pm--your stuff would have a lot more punch if you would give a handle, even a semi-anonymous one.
ReplyDeleteThere are more questions than answers about the MAST merger into the fire department, certainly more than can be covered in a blog comment. I'll leave you with these questions to ponder: Will the cost of the merging of MAST employees into the city far exceed the cost savings? Will the cultures of EMS and fire suppression clash in nasty and unpleasant ways? Are 24 hour shifts realistic for EMS crews in the busiest areas of the city? If life for MAST employees was so bad, how come Local 42 didn't go to bat for them with MAST administration? It's not about ad hominium attacks on one another, and who is crazy and who is kissing someone's ass. It is about doing the best prehospital care for the money. Do we know that we will really save money with this change in our EMS delivery system? Do we know that this change in Kansas City's EMS will result in maintaining or improving the excellent care given now, or are we buying a pig-in-a-poke, hoping to save money, and risking that our EMS will not be as good when it all is said and done?
observer- ems crews work 24 hr shifts all over the country, and when mast was in kck we did it there, so this is not a new concept. and maybe one time, just one time someone could actually think about the mast employees. we have a 401k, which is great, but extremely market dependant when it comes to retirement. we are in a job that eventually it becomes not physically possible to do, and right now when that happens, sometimes the options for the future are not very bright. we have had upper management that was out for himself, giving himself awesome benefits, but not really caring about anyone else. we were hired into a system where we were told they want to turn and burn. give us a little experience, then get rid of us before we cost too much. is it really best for the citizens to constantly get emergency care from turnover employees. so, in this big debate, maybe someone could think of the employees who leave their families everyday to come save yours. you may tell if it is that bad work somewhere else, but, for a lot of us, this is basically what we were born to do. we give your family and loved ones the best possible care and giving something back to us should not be debated, it should be demanded.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I see you're watching the blog. I was curious to see what would happen when I posted, I was a little nervous. I understand your love for your work, I did EMS for several years, both paid and volunteer. I remember with my first paid job how I felt: "You pay me for this?" It gets under your skin. I'm an RN now, and guess where my favorite place is to work--yup, the ER. If I moved to a place that needed volunteers for the ambulance service, I'd do it in a minute, even tho my EMT is long lapsed and I'd have to go to EMT school. I only wish the best for MAST employees, see you guys regularly at 101st and Wornall, and say a prayer for your safety cause I know the paramedicine you're practicing is way more dangerous than anything I did. My only concern is that nothing impairs the giving of great care in this city. If employees were badly treated by MAST, that's wrong. Eventually that would impact care. After all, it would not be illegal for MAST employees to strike. Obviously, all was/is not wonderful in MAST land. Sounds like change was needed in the relationship between MAST and its employees. However, part of my problem with this process of change has been with the process of change. Until Chief Dyer testified in September, we had very little details on the actual structure of the changes in store for MAST. And we still have only very fuzzy numbers on cost savings and pension issues. So how do we know this is the change we need? I might very well have landed differently on this issue if the committees, consultants etc. etc. could have brought me a table with numbers showing savings, and a graph illustrating the command structure right at the beginning of the public debate, back in August, after the issue had been knocking around City Hall for 7-8 months. It's that uncertainty that makes me question wholesale changes for a system that was giving good care. The important words above are "wholesale changes"--sounds like some change may have been needed to the system to help MAST employees. One thing I still don't understand--local 42 couldn't help with this stuff? Or was the management so difficult that it might have come down to a strike and nobody wanted that? I've never worked in a union shop so I have total ignorance here. Thanks for your passion. I love it. I'd rather see you over a patient than as as patient; either way, I bet you do great patient care.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, for you MAST folks here, have you been checking out the EMS 2.0 project on some of the EMS blogs? A blogger called Happy Medic is a good place to start to check it out.
ReplyDeleteDarn it, I knew with such a long entry I'd leave something out: Re: 24 hour shifts. Most studies done in areas where the medics are very busy show that 24 shifts hurt performance, mental attitude and the medic's family life. Google it and check out the studies. In KC's case,it might work out fine in the Northland or Southland, but if you put an ambulance in a fixed location in midtown, downtown or on the east side, that crew will be pretty darn tired after 24 hours.
ReplyDeleteTo The observer:
ReplyDeleteWe have been sold this Public Utility model of EMS in KC for thirty years. It was sold to us by a guy who later saw the flaw in his design and tried to rewrite the design, but no one would listen to him the second time around. In the good old days it worked to some degree. Insurance covered the costs of the system well enough that the providers had some chance at making a life. Insurance companies followed Medicare and cut payments. The money to run the system dried up. The privite company that was the key component to the Public utility model was fired. That left us with a quazi govermental organization called MAST. MAST required 13 million dollar a year in general fund tax to make payrole. It also required a tax to buy and maintain the ambulances. But the city had no control over how MAST actually spent any of those tax dallors. But as funds ran shorter and shorter, the system was cheapened. Less units on the street to respond to your emergency. Cheaper and cheaper medical supplies used to save your life. The fine providers at MAST worked harder and harder to asuure no life was effected. We continued to tell MAST that we could not continue at this pace, We couldn't be as effective with some of the cheap equipment. We weren't listened too. At the same time some of the former upper management bought big screen TVs, Car allowances, Bonuses for themselves etc etc. The city screamed that during these hard economic times that money could have been used to continue the employement of city workers. But MAST the quazi govermental thing that it was took the money and wasted it. It wasn't spent for system improvements it wasn't spent to buy high quality equipment it wasn't used to put more ambulances on the street, or care for the employees. It was used to buy a golden parachute.So now MAST is gone. Thank God. On this site I hear pissing and moaning about the Fire Dept. Whatever. When you go to work do you put your life on the line for the citizens. NO YOU dont. With that small fact, the game changes. KCFD must operate with some form of moral code. No amount of money is worth dying for, no retirement is worth a damn if your not alive. So the motivation must come from some where else. I know where that spot is, I saw it in the USMC. I've seen it in the returning soilders. I saw it at 30th and Harrison. So any comment about less service, people dying, run away costs are based in ignorance. Service will be better, team work will be better, crew moral will be better, equipment won't used up or straight low bidder crap.I won't let it happen my coworker won't let it happen the fire dept won't let it happen, the city won't let it happen. Also as the last post noted. Kansas City was the annomily, the rest of the worlds EMS deployement is based on static posting. Why? It doesn't kill the provider, and it is actually more cost effective, when the true costs are factored. So SAVE MAST? How about saving the crews that are MAST, and let the bonus paying big screen buying, golden chute sky diving, uncontrollable, for profit MAST go the way of the doo doo.
Hey thanks for the reply and posting. All along I have wished this was a much more open process with better sharing of information. I have gotten more info from anonymous TKC commenters like you--both pro merger and anti merger--than from the press or anyone else. About 2-3 years ago, I received in a patient in the ER I was working in, a patient on CPAP. I thought this was freaking awesome. But it was not a patient brought in by MAST, but by the KCK FD. I wondered then why MAST wasn't on this cutting edge. If what you say is true, this is the explanation for that. Money that could have gone to buy the equipment, train the medics, and make up the protocols was being misused. That's definitely wrong. There's no doubt that moving ambulances around to the different posts usually helps response times. For MAST, the great response time has been the holy grail. If what you and other posters (and the gentleman who testified in September) say about the posts is true, dynamic posting must be reviewed as part of any plan to make EMS better for the providers. Maybe it's time for static posts, or a combined model, with ambulances moving to different fire stations like fire trucks do, to cover the area while that company is busy. I hope people are reading your posts and thinking about what you say. I don't trust Louie Wright and the leadership of local 42 one bit. But I trust the firefighters and EMS workers of this town--those on the line, and their immediate supervisors--to give great service. I always have. We may just have to rise above the political bullshit and concentrate on the important things, including taking care of one another. Something tells me that "rising above" will not be a change for anyone.
ReplyDeleteBy the by, the profit motive makes a difference--just compare HCA for-profit hospitals with those founded on a more altruistic or spiritual basis.
Anon--losing my internet access. Thanks for the dialogue. It will be interesting to see if anyone else read our dialogue, and what they have to say.
ReplyDeleteStay safe out there.
To the observer:
ReplyDeleteThanks for actually listening. Most just react with hate and fear. By the way I trust Louie Wright.
Dave, if you put some many personal details in your comments and continue with the horrible spelling and lack of disregard for paragraphs, you might as well sign your comments.
ReplyDeleteJust FYI, there is an abundance of studies pointing to the danger of 24 hour shifts. So to answer the comments above, yes the danger to the crews and to patients increases exponentially with an increase in shift time.
ReplyDeleteIn studies, EMS, police and fire fighters working 24 hours shifts were monitored during their down time. What they found was the the workers' bodies never really relaxed. Their heart rate remained elevated and the deep sleep was either very short or not present at all. The body maintained a state of readiness that prevented rest.
Also, crews working longer shifts tend to do more patient refusals. As anyone in EMS knows, refusals expose you and the service to the most liability. As the time on duty increased, the refusal rate also significantly increased.
I'm not against this takeover, but working 24 hour shifts in the middle of the city when we're running 8-14 calls in a 12 hour period is asking for a medical disaster. It's dangerous and stupid and there is no research to support it.
The only reason 24 hour shifts are so popular is that it allows people to work two full time jobs at once. Since we're on the subject of trying to be some big city and do what everyone else does, take a look around and you'll see the the 24 hour shift is disappearing from busy departments like NYFD who works 10 hour days, 14 hour night or 9 hour days, 15 hour nights depending on the schedule.
But look at rotating shifts where you work days, evenings, and nights at 2 week or 3 week intervals. Despite the data showing how awful these are for people and how they never are fully rested, many businesses and police departments and even hospitals (who should know better) force these horrible shifts on people.
i have worked 24hr, 12, and 10.5 hr shifts at mast...they can all be fine and they can all be horrible. depending on the shift, the person, and the partner. i have been more exhausted after driving 200 miles and running 1 call in a 12 hr shift than driving 50 miles and running 6 calls in a 24 hr shift. i have not seen or heard anything about all 24 hr shifts. al i have heard is a mix of shifts. if you do not want to work a 24 hr shift...don't. but, since i like them and so not consider them horrible, do not try to take that away from me.
ReplyDeletenext i would warn anyone about making assumptions about what shifts do the most refusals...it is a inaccurate statement, and your amount of refusals depends on the types of calls you run. 5 one day, none the next.
lastly, if you want to talk about the differences between static and dynamic posting do not forget to mention all the studies that have shown increased work comp related injuries for employees that have the ambulance as their home. then take a peek at the work comp statistics for mast...