BEAUMONT, Texas — The Beaumont EMS Medical Director spoke to city council before Tuesday's meeting amid the ongoing EMS response time concerns.
Dr. Dar Kavouspour, Assistant Director of Trauma Services and Medical Director of Beaumont EMS, told council members that regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, financial status, the most precious thing is human life.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above previously aired March 29, 2023.)
Kavouspour has been the medical director of Beaumont EMS since 2004.
He said first responders who respond to 911 calls are dealing with “precious cargo.”
Dr. Kavouspour said the thing that sets Beaumont EMS apart from the rest is their training. He considers Beaumont EMS the “Navy Seals” of EMS because they are well-trained, and the city seeks quality over quantity.
Kavouspour says he does not accept or condone lowering the standards although the city needs more medics.
“When you call 911 you want to make sure the person who comes to your doorstep knows what they’re doing,” Kavouspour said.
Dr. Kavouspour explained to city council members that 12 years' worth of data shows the number of people needing to be taken to the hospital has dropped. He feels this is because EMS crews have been able to evaluate patients on a 911 call, allowing the patients to determine if they need to go to the hospital after talking about their symptoms with medics.
Kavouspour says this evaluation is something a firefighter may not be able to do.
Dr. Kavouspour told city council that EMS personnel can't leave the hospital until the patient is under the care of the hospital.
He said hospital cooperation in getting the patients under treatment faster is helping lower the strain on EMS.
Kavouspour says medical treatment begins at the scene.
“I don’t think reducing the criteria for inclusion is the answer. We need quality” he said.
On March 29, 2023, Kavouspour released a letter regarding EMS Patient Care Services, saying response times are excellent.
In the letter, he says while they are understaffed, they are working diligently to hire more workers.
"We are currently staffed for minimum of five ambulances 24/7, but can have up to seven depending on staffing. We are budgeted for nine and working on doing that," he said.
Kavouspour says that part of the problem is that non-emergency calls need to be filtered by a trained medic.
"So that the lower level calls do not occupy one of the trucks, those calls can be handled by lesser experienced personnel," he said in the letter.
Kavouspour says Beaumont EMS prides themselves for answering every 911 call that comes in.
He says they track every call and the length of time spent at the scene and at the hospital.
"With the merger of fire department and EMS, my goal is to use the firefighters to help with some of these calls and to train them so that they can participate in the medical calls," Kavouspour said in the letter.
He says the goal is to expand the number of medics and trucks.
Kavouspour says as an integral member of CHRISTUS Hospital, he has educated his ER staff to make sure that they unload patients brought in by Beaumont EMS in an "expeditious manner" so that they can be ready for the next call.
"I want to make sure that the public understands the EMS dynamics and challenges. We take this job extremely seriously and as their medical director, | ensure you that we are doing everything to provide the best and the highest level of care for our community," Kavouspour said in the letter.
The Beaumont Professional Firefighters Local 399 Union is helping turn anger into action by launching a hotline in response to delayed emergency medical services calls.
The Union's President Jeff Nesom says the people of Beaumont are being forced to wait too long for an ambulance.
The hotline was created to gauge how many people have been impacted by delayed EMS response times.
MORE | Call the hotline number at 1-877-590-1090.
911 dispatchers answer hundreds of thousands of emergency calls each day, but what if you called and help never arrived, or came too late?
"Yesterday approximately 15 911 calls were made that we did not have an ambulance available," Nesom previously told 12News.
Nesom says they're extremely short-staffed right now, and Beaumont Fire Rescue Chief Earl White backs up this claim.
"Sometimes we may not have the resources, there may be a delay in services but we have never not responded," White previously told 12News.
As the union's president, Nesom has tried reaching out to city leaders offering a solution to get more EMS workers hired.
He is proposing the city drop the certification requirement for firefighters.
"That opens the door to a lot more possibilities on how many applicants you can have," Nesom said.
Nesom emailed this proposal to Chief White in April 2022. This same proposal was sent out to Beaumont Mayor Robin Mouton in July.
In a statement sent to 12News, Mayor Mouton said, "I have never rejected a call or meeting from any of our Union representatives. This Council and the City's management team has been responsive to the needs of the Union. We committed to providing excellent service to our citizens and supporting our first responders."
Almost a year since the proposal was sent, Nesom says the hiring practices remain the same.
"We should be able to sit down that's where a lot of these issues come from is the city's unwillingness to work with local 399 to come up with solutions to solve our hiring issues," he said.
According to Nesom, this shortage is affecting the community and first responders.
"It's causing a lot of fatigue and our members are at a breaking point," Nesom said. "That's leading to a lot of overtime, we've got members that are working up to 96 hours a week."
Nesom is has officially launched the 399 hotline to hear from anyone who has experienced delays in EMS response times in order to collect data and present it to the city.
"You call 911, you must be having the worst day of your life bc you've reached the last resort and when you pick up the phone and called 911 you expected help to arrive as quick as possible, if that didn't happen we want to know about it," Nesom said.