Is health care a right or a privilege?

Today I had one of the saddest calls of my time here at cvfd. I was dispatched to a cardiac arrest. when I arrived I found this 18 year old kid lying on the floor in his room. My heart was already pounding from yelling directions to my third (new student on the volunteer) "grab the lucas, load the stretcher with the suction, lets go" I dropped to my knees and checked his pulse, and I started chest compressions. Before when I had preformed cpr it was always on 40-80 year old. But it was all for nothing, will one of the firefighters was starting to manage his airway but discovered the kid had rigor mortis. He had been dead for too long he was beyond help. Yesterday had been his 18th birthday. His room was filled with empty rum/beer bottles and there was a bag weed, I am not sure how he died but this wasnt a one time event, Actually last week my dept. had responded to this same kid crashing a car into a house completely drunk. No matter what he did or had done with his life it was just a horrible experience, I am not sure which was worse, leaving his cold body on the cement floor or walking past his mother outside the house.
The whole experience brought me back to a debate I had earlier with my friend about whether health care is a right or a privilege. It seems self evident to me that health care should be a right for everyone. But when people deliberately throw away there life repeatedly what do you do. Do you get so many chances? Or is addiction just as much a disease as cancer and just requires treatment through lapses and remissions. But there is an undeniable element of choice in these cases. So where is the line? Is there one?

What I do

Since it was not clear what exactly it is that I do, I thought I would take this post to clarify. I provide 911 emergency care to the people of South West Alief Texas (S.W.A.T.) A large portion of our 3 districts are not wealthy and regardless of  the avg. income of the population, as I have discovered during my time at CVFD, it is often the underprivliged that call 9-1-1 more often. This is often due to the fact that lower income families are unable to afford medications, or delay seeking care via their PCP, if they have one or sometimes just don't have the means of transportation to get to the hospital.
 So let me describe to you my last shift as it was a typical day/night as typical as it can get in the 911-emergency services. My day started at 5:30 pm on sat I was driving to the station and was right in front of station 1 was a Life Flight Helicopter and nearly all of station 1's apparatuses. Apparently a motorcyclist had sustained severe head trauma during a Motor Vehicle Collision (MVC). Anyways so I got to watch Life Flight take off which was a first for me because I the proverbial white cloud but that's another topic. So back to my normal schedule. The first 30 mins prior to shift change at 6, I try to complete my ambulance check off and make sure everything is stocked, drugs, air, gas, equipment and batteries are charged etc. After 6pm the ambulance and it's calls belong to me and my partner. Boy this night was busy we ran all night. All three CVFD stations were busy, in fact we had to do a lot of running between districts. One memorable call of the 6 or 7 calls of that night was at Wal-mart. (It was so much fun getting to the scene because I got the opportunity to drive about 90 mph down west park tollway lights and sirens blaring)  This Wal-Mart greeter who had hit her head on steel pipe and had some loss of consciousnesses (LOC). She was also very hypertensive so eventually we convinced her to go to the hospital with us. She was the sweetest 65 y/o. She kept complimenting me and my partner and to keep her awake I kept asking her about her very interesting life. She used to be married and due to her husband's job she lived every where from Egypt to all over Europe and even some of South America. She was so thankful when we got to the hospital that she wanted a hug before we left. It must have been the great aunt in her. Her appreciation defiantly helped me my patience with some of the other calls that we went to that night. I got to eat dinner at about 10pm unfortunately cold form sitting on the table. And after the 6th call that night at about 4am I finally got to sleep for about 3 hours. Till I was woken up by my new partner for the next shift. Oh yeah forgot to mention I worked a 24hr shift.Thank goodness the AM shift was light compared to the night. I know this blog is a little late and I have so much more to say but I still haven't gone to sleep so it will have to wait. Good night.

Day 1

I have been volunteering as an EMT-I at CVFD since last October. I first started as part of the service learning class of the honors program at St. Thomas. It was very similar to this project we kept a journal during the 100 hr commitment. After the 100 hr commitment was over I realized how much I had enjoyed volunteering for the Alief community. I am getting close to my one year anniversary at  Community Volunteer Fire Dept (CVFD). I hope that reflecting in this blog will help provide insight into the lessons I learn from those whom I serve and work with.