Published: Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010 / Updated: Wednesday, Jul. 21, 2010 10:21 AM
Fort Mill Times: Make EMS records public
Are emergency medical technicians more like doctors or police officers and firefighters? When it comes to disclosing information about them to the public, they are a little bit like all of them – or none of them – according to an S.C. Senate committee.
The committee last week cleared a bill that seeks to make EMTs more publically accountable in emergency medical service cases where negligence could be involved, but not before watering it down somewhat. The original bill, sponsored by State Sen. Harvey Peeler (R-Gaffney) and championed by the South Carolina Press Association, sought to open records of emergency calls, including the names of EMTS, to the public in the same way police call reports are available to anyone who asks.
After some debate, a compromise measure made it through the Senate Medical Affairs Committee on an 8-2 vote. The bill that will go before the full Senate calls for complete records, names and all, to be released on request to those who required the emergency call. The information could also be released to the press – with or without the patient or victim’s consent – if there has been a complaint filed against the EMT(s) who responded to the call.
Those records now are kept private because of an obscure provision in a state law passed several years ago at the request of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. Among the arguments for reversing that law are cases in Columbia and Beaufort County in which actions by EMTs were questioned.
Although the bill that will go before the full Senate falls short of what public information advocates were hoping for, sometimes you have to take what you can get and be happy with it. This is one of those times and we hope to see the amended bill become law.
- Fort Mill Times
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