Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) acquired a license last month, certifying the group as a classified ambulance operator in the state of Massachusetts, but its members say the group has no plans to actually obtain an ambulance.
The license, which the Massachusetts Department of Health's Office of Emergency Medical Services approved in early September, gives TEMS the same recognition and accreditation as any other ambulance service in Massachusetts.
"The whole idea of the license is to give TEMS more of an official standing," said senior David Kudlowitz, TEMS' director of operations.
"It's been many years in the running, and the idea first started as far back as 1999," said senior Jonathan Nadler, executive director of TEMS.
TEMS has no plans to actually operate an ambulance because of the vehicle's high maintenance costs.
In fact, TEMS already operates at a standard that is equal to that of other ambulance services, so the new license will not result in any changes to the group, according to Nadler.
"We have been preparing for this for a number of years. We've been on top of everything," Nadler said. "[The certification] is not going to change much, it's just going to give us better recognition with the state and the administration."
Department of Public Safety Technical Services Manager Geoffrey Bartlett, TEMS' administrative advisor, said that "a number of practical obstacles" stand in the way of operating an ambulance at Tufts.
"We would be required to garage the ambulance, and that would change the nature in the way TEMS works," he said.
"In terms of our protocols, nothing is going to change," Nadler said. "Most of the reason being, for the past number of years we've been operating under the stance of getting licensure. So we've been compliant with all the regulations.
TEMS volunteer Alice Tin, a junior, said that an ambulance would limit TEMS volunteers' mobility by requiring them to band together at all times, because an ambulance takes three people to operate.
"We have three people on duty always and we can kind of be wherever we want to be on campus," she said. "If there is a call, the person who has the TEMS truck will drive and pick everyone up. If we had an ambulance we would need to be at the station all the time."
Bartlett said owning an ambulance would also be imprudent. "When we look at the volume of calls TEMS responds to over the course of the year and consider the number of times that the ambulance would actually be used to transport the patient, it wouldn't be cost-effective for the university to operate at that level," he said.
Bartlett explained that in emergency situations that require an ambulance or a stretcher, outside emergency medical services will continue to provide ambulances.
Kudlowitz said TEMS' emergency vans can do almost as much as ambulances can, anyway.
"The only difference between us and what some people may call a 'real ambulance' is that we don't have a stretcher. Everything else is exactly the same," Kudlowitz said. "We're trained the same way, we take the same amount of class time and we take the same exact tests."
Bartlett said that even without a physical ambulance, TEMS plays a critical role in handling campus emergencies.
"TEMS still provides a valuable service in that they're able to arrive earlier than the ambulance and yet provide the same level of care as a basic life-support ambulance until the ambulance gets there," he said.
TEMS volunteers are ready to assess emergency situations before an ambulance arrives at the scene, Bartlett explained.
"Effectively they're bringing the equipment and bringing the skills and training of an ambulance to the scene a lot sooner and beginning to treat the patient even before the ambulance gets there," he said.
