Originally published at: Renegade fire department illegally saved baby, says private ambulance firm | Boing Boing
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Next up for the company: suing schools, churches, universities and the local police department for having first aid courses on their premises.
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I recently read A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear, the non-fiction account of a quasi-organized movement to dismantle government services in Grafton, New Hampshire in order to build a libertarian paradise.
Spoiler: a whole lot of buildings in the area ended up burning down.
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I am not a lawyer, but I believe that a contract like that, which actually has a likelihood of causing people to die, is unconscionable and therefore unenforceable.
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Pessimistic me foresees a future, similar case where by the private Life-Maintenance service company demands that that person who’s life was illegally (and more importantly out of contract) maintained by another entity in their service area, relinquish said life, as it was in the sole contractually ordered decision of the Life-Maintenance service company to provide service or not.
So basically Repo: the Genetic opera, but without the cumbersome need for organ transplants first. The government could just contract life maintenance services from the get-go.
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No! Let’s not both-sides this: public services are inherently superior. The burden is 100% on Ayn-caps to prove that funneling money to the owner class can possibly improve services; the claim is absurd on its face, and the evidence for it is non-existent.
If you directly compare publicly-run services with those run for profit, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the former. That’s why Capital never allows the direct comparison – we only see well-funded private services compared to underfunded (or absent) public services. Or public services compared against perfection.
The real arguments for privatisation are (1) it’s a quick source of cash at the expense of future generations and (2) some services might improve if you stopped providing them to the poor. Actually, both of those are questionable as it turns out. But the argument that private services work better was never meant as anything more than a cynical joke, which only a total boob would take seriously. I mean, like, NYT columnist levels of imbecilism.
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[Hollow laughing sound]
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Reminds me of the story of the Pittsburgh Freedom House Ambulance Service, which came into being in 1967 because police just would not respond to emergency calls in black neighborhoods.
And then their ambulances and EMTs were so effective, it changed ambulances and EMT training forever.
I heard it on a drama-filled podcast, but there’s a healthy wiki page, too.
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Suing the people who pay you because they saved a baby isn’t a great strategy when your contract comes up for renewal.
I think the the firefighters are covered by the Good Samaritan laws.
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The firefighters are pro-actively filing incident reports before the private firm can file complaints. The reports make careful note of the delayed response time that prompted them to take action.
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Capitalism is immoral.
Whoever agreed to file that suit is no better than a murderer.
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Same with private prisons.
A private for-profit prison is unthinkably evil. It is out of hand, a ridiculous and unreasonable concept. No contract involving one should be considered a legal document.
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while true, most cities have private ambulance services these days. and i believe they’re all mostly run by one or two big companies
when i had to call 911 to get medical help for a loved one, the private ambulance that showed up took them to the hospital that was furthest away. the emt said it was for space reasons, but it’s really hard to believe that when you know the company essentially gets paid by the mile
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Yep. someone’s pockets were lined in the signing of that contract.
The state I live in, yo. We are in competition with Texas and Florida; thankfully, we are nowhere near in first place for that title…
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And (3) your mates in the companies that stand to make a profit out of it will reward you with a sinecure directorship.
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And I thought the case of the paramedics that lost their licenses for performing a c-section on a dead woman was bad. (They had reached the point of abandoning CPR as hopeless. A c-section is way beyond their scope of practice but it was a nothing-to-lose type case. Too late, though, the baby died a week later.)
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But what if the private company was a coop that most of the local residents belonged to as shareholders, and they took votes on management decisions and …
Hang on a moment! /s
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If the private ambulance firm wants the power of an exclusive contract, shouldn’t the private ambulance firm be responsible (civilly or criminally) if they delay responding to a call and the patient suffers a serious injury or dies?
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