Dear President Bush, Members of the Senate & US House of Representatives:

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in the United States is in the throes of an unprecedented emergency of its own. 

There exists an immediate need to take expedited action to stop this crisis and support the medical rescue responders of this nation. 

• Though EMS providers are roughly equal in numbers to firefighters and law enforcement officers, they receive only four percent of the first responder funding allocated by DHS. This is unsurprising from the federal perspective given that EMS is not located in DHS, but disturbing given that EMS is as critical a component of the first responder community. This means, that following a WMD attack, firefighters and law enforcement officers will be donning their protective equipment that was paid for by the federal government, while EMS providers stand unprotected on the sidelines, unable to treat the patients that are in need of their immediate lifesaving help.  The only other option available to EMS personnel will be to enter a contaminated environment unprotected and thus face almost certain bodily harm. 

• EMS lacks a data collection program similar to the federal programs provided to its first responder counterparts. Thanks to the U.S.F.A., we know that there were 1.6 million fires causing $12.3 billion in damage during 2003.  And the Bureau of Justice Statistics tells us that 1,068,500 violent crimes were reported in 2003 and police made 597,000 arrests.        No federal agency collects data on EMS responses—a major shortcoming that undercuts the EMS community’s ability to conduct research to improve itself, or even justify its mission. 

• There has never been an assessment of the needs of EMS in the United States. 

• There is no national training academy dedicated to emergency medical services providers.  The FEMA provides firefighters with the National Fire Academy and emergency managers with the Emergency Management Institute.  Police officers have opportunities with such training sites as the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the FBI Academy.  Although EMS providers can participate in some courses held at some of these sites, none exclusively focus on EMS training needs and none integrate well the medical aspects of emergency response.  The existing inventory of federally funded courses that address EMS-specific operational or medical response issues is minimal at best. 

• At the federal level, EMS is an all but forgotten component of emergency response, and thus needs to be in a federal department that embraces its first responder mission.

• Recent reports by the Gilmore National Terrorism Commission; the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Domestic Preparedness; New York University and The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute all point to the lack of available funds for EMS, the inability to secure equipment, recruitment and retention problems and the lack of data gathering – including matters such as line of duty injuries and deaths for EMT’s and Paramedics.  Moreover the significant majority of these reports identify the critical need for a single national EMS agency at the federal level to remedy this national crisis.

 A much more comprehensive—and ambitious—effort is necessary if we are to address the federal EMS leadership and funding gaps that have persisted for more than two decades. Within DHS, EMS needs an advocate for the funding, training, education, exercising and equipment afforded to other first responder groups. 

Therefore, we call upon the President and Congress to establish the U.S. Emergency Medical Services Administration (USEMSA) within the Department of Homeland Security.

The Undersigned;