Dateline: Washington, D.C.

Commentary by: Alison Green, US News and World Report

Do you know what rights you have at work? You might assume that your Agency’s managers and supervisors understand Labor Law and always follow the rules, but in reality many employers regularly violate employment law, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Listed in this report are the most common ways that managers and supervisors break workplace labor laws, some of them being so common that most employees don’t even realize their rights are being violated. Take a look and see if you spot anything here that your Agency should be doing differently. (click here)

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Commentary by: Jillian A. Cohen |  ja_cohen@theconcernedcitizen.net

“It’s ten after ten on a Wednesday morning and a stabbing victim is in cardiac arrest. Where are all the ambulances?” This pic and statement, released by Paul Wagner on Twitter, exposes three deep rooted problems that have plagued this city for years, in my estimation.

Number 1: City official’s refusal to implement an ongoing media campaign focusing on public awareness with a concentration on the proper use of our 911 system.

Number 2: City official’s unwillingness to admit policy failures and reverse same. Such as; The DCFEMS’s Dual Role training program, which effectively forces firemen to become medical personnel. As a former paramedic, I believe this program is counter productive. Firefighting is a science, a hard enough craft to perfect in it’s own rite. Pre-med, which is what EMT’s and Paramedics practice on a daily basis, is like fire science in that the discipline is just as hard to learn and as challenging to get right, especially on the streets of DC in emergency situations.

Number 3: City official’s failure to act in a responsible manner to purchase enough ems units to cover a city of this size, (especially when citizens are allowed to call 911 and request an ambulance for finger rings that are to tight, or even a doctor’s appointment), and to hire and/or train enough personnel to man the units in order to keep the 2 aforementioned disciplines totally separate like they were years ago when the entire 911 system seemed to work better. In those days the 911 system itself operated as 2 separate disciplines, MPD and Fire.

Again, our elected officials chose the Cost over Concern for the safety of the citizens and visitors of the Nation’s Capital.

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