When a police officer entered a room in a care unit at Southern California last month, he found a panicked nurse doing chest compressions on a patient, show body camera footage. The patient had suffered a heart attack and the staff did not have the proper equipment to help, according to a police report.
But just outside the entrance to the building stood paramedics equipped with possible rescue tools. They had refused to go inside, claiming it was against his state rules Covid, according to the newspaper article «The Washington Post».
So, the officer took action, helping the staff to push the bed, which was not on wheels, through the building and out the front door, addressing the officers from the Fire Service of Rialto.
The patient was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The five-minute video of the police’s camera troubled the city leaders, he said in a statement last Wednesday. active Chief of the Fire Brigade, Brian Park. In response, the fire department put the paramedics on leave pending an investigation by third parties and the city council ordered the video to be made public.
“We want to have a thorough research and actions [των παραϊατρικών]”If they are not in line with the policy in any way, or even if they were, they will be dealt with,” she said. mayor of Rialto, Deborah Robertson, at a board meeting last week.
The paramedics who remained outside the care unit probably referred to an outdated coronavirus note in April 2020 from Association of Fire Chiefs of the county San Bernardino, which noted that “staff responding to long-term care facilities” should take steps to “minimize any potential exposure risk”, according to the KTTV. One solution to their reluctance to enter the building would be to ask the care center staff to bring the patient outside. But the note also said that if a patient could not move, the first person to respond to the call for help could enter and “interact with the patient”.
The policeman Ralph Ballew arrived at Rialto Post Acute Care Center, about 50 miles east of its center Los Angeles, before 8 p.m. on November 17, responding to a call stating that a patient was “undergoing cardiac arrest” and “was no longer breathing,” the police report said. When the Ballew entered the parking lot, said she noticed her staff Rialto Fire to stand at the entrance of the building. They had responded to a report of a patient with “respiratory distress”, the fire department said in a statement.
Minutes later, a police officer noticed a nurse shouting to paramedics for help, he said. Ballew.
“He has a heart attack!” exclaimed the nurse, the officer recalled.
However, paramedics replied that the patient had to be transported to them, as they were not allowed to enter the building, according to the report.
A second clerk asked for help and said they were providing ΚΑΡΠΑ “They could not move the patient and stop the rescue operation,” he wrote Ballew in his report.
“Do the same thing we should do if we went inside,” said one firefighter, according to Ballew. “Well, hurry up and get him out so we can help.”
THE Ballew said one of the first to respond then turned to him and said that if care center staff did not like the policy, “they should call their MP,” the report said.
“Rialto Post Acute Care Center staff begged for help”
Immediately after, the Ballew entered the care unit to look for the patient in danger. As the policeman crossed the corridors, he met “outraged hospital staff begging for help” and “visibly upset by the lack of effort” of the paramedics, according to the report.
As soon as he arrived at the patient’s room, the Ballew said he noticed a caregiver doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation as others tried to move the patient’s industrial hospital bed. The officer ran inside to help push the bed toward the entrance.
“Even though they were in sight, the fire brigade insisted on bringing them [τον ασθενή] outside, before they started the rescue efforts and made no effort to help me get out [τον ασθενή] out, “he said Ballew.
As soon as he came out, one of the first to respond reportedly told the nurses to “slow down” as he asked them questions about the patient’s condition. The nurses were visibly upset, he said Ballew.
The paramedics transported the patient to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, less than two miles away, at Colton of California, where he was pronounced dead at 8:38 p.m.
No one had previously refused to enter the building
In interviews with police a few days after the incident, staff at the unit said they were relying on paramedics for help with “advanced life support care for heart failure patients”. These conditions include defibrillation, intubation, intravenous access, and medication administration, according to the report.
Staff added that they had called paramedics several times since the pandemic began and had never met people refusing to enter the building. An employee of the medical center, who called the emergency number during the incident, said the recipient of the call insisted that the paramedics “should come”, the report says.

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