Lifting and back problems...

Being based in the UK, we've got rid of our "lift and load" vehicles a few years ago, and now all of our buses have either hydrolic lifts or automatic ramps on them so we don't have to do any of the lifting into and out of the ambulance, howver i've noticed a lot of the North American vehicles seem to still use "rugged" type stretchers and other similar ones that still need to be lifted into the air before loading into your vehicle. Or am i just not seeing enough of any vehicles that might have alternative methods of getting the stretcher into the vehicle ?

I can speak from personal experience and also of of my services general experience, but back problems are quite common, and this moce to ramps and lifts has made a big diference... more so now that our average patient is getting larger.

Any input or comments anyone?

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Permalink Reply by Jim on November 20, 2008 at 6:49pm

We switched to the hydraulic cots a couple of years ago and the amount of back injuries have decreased, but you still have to hold the cot up while the wheels come up. The ramps into the ambulance are not practical in the rural enviroment, its just another thing on the rig that can fail. We try to use two people on the cot when we load.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon on February 27, 2009 at 12:38am

Weve recently gone from ferno stretchers, to a the hydralic stryker. The new strykers are about 50 lbs heavier, but its nice being able to raise/lower a stretchers with one person, with just the push of a button. We haven't had any trouble with the new stretchers, even on the -40 celcius days.

But now with a heavier stretcher, we can't always carry the cot into homes like we would with the ferno. We now use our stryker stair chairs more, which works great, just takes a little longer. Although, when we use the stair chair, we have to make at least 2 more moves to get the patient to our unit which has the potential of causing more injuries.

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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on February 27, 2009 at 2:02am

Your right Gareth, seems like thats what we are dealing with at least in my area. I have re-accuring back issues from lifting patients. Seems pretty obvious that we need to go to some type of lift system.

Lifting and back problems...

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