Photo by ep_jhu
After nearly seven months on the job, during which she says her attempts to reform the D.C. Fire and EMS Department have gone ignored, the department’s medical director has called it quits. Jullette Saussy filed her resignation letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser on January 29, stating that her service will end on February 13.
In less than a year, Saussy said she’s discovered “why people die needlessly” in the District at the hands of FEMS. First, she calls the department’s culture “highly toxic,” as attempts to make basic changes are “met with resistance from the top down.” In addition, she said there’s a lack of accountability at all levels—even she hasn’t received the authority to make policy changes and is instead pushed to medical duties, but the two go hand in hand, she said.
Further, she wrote, the department fails to measure its true performance beginning with response times, and provides “incomplete measurements and elaborate graphs resulting in inaccurate and flawed information.” But to give a glimpse at the issue, a report released last summer showed that on July 31, the average response time around 4 p.m. stretched beyond 17 minutes. By 5 p.m., the average number of ambulances on the road was fewer than 1.
The dismal numbers bolstered Mayor Bowser’s argument that using private ambulances for some calls is a necessary step to remedying the problem. However, Saussy said this particular plan is “as unlikely to fix the situation as as placing a Band Aid on a gushing artery.”
The real problem, she continued, is the lack of commitment to EMS and the “lack of focus and attention to high quality prehospital emergency care at the DC Fire Department.”
When asked to verify the skill competency of D.C. medics for a national registry, she said she doesn’t even know if the over 700 workers have received proper training. Thus, she refuses to place her name and license on the line.
A simple fix, she said, would be creating a separate department to oversee advanced life care support. With this type of accountably, perhaps the the department’s first response system can be fixed. But because it seems like this will not happen, she’s decided to distance herself. “Complicity kills and I will not be party to that behavior,” she said.
In response, Mayor Bowser has accepted Saussy’s resignation and will announce an interim Medical Director later this week, said Bowser administration spokesperson Michael Czin. ‘It’s not an easy task and we need a team that’s willing to put in the hard work and stay for the long haul.”
Czin said Mayor Bowser is committed to reforming FEMS and “has put in place a Fire Chief and supporting team to do just that.” Additionally, in the last year, Czin said progress has come in the form of administering the agency’s first entry-level exam in eight years, putting a process in place to utilize third party EMS providers to support FEMS, and ending a 14-year lawsuit between the District and FEMS’ largest union.
