First aid squads
in critical condition

New Jersey is at a crossroads. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the state’s volunteer emergency response system is pushing its limits, and our communities must grapple with the possibility that the time of such exclusively volunteer effort is passing.

For many reasons that is unfortunate. For decades, communities have been able to rely on their neighbors at their greatest time of need, and the service provided has been of incalculable value. And as the creation of a local Hatzollah Ambulance Service attests, the demise of such a volunteer community service is not a certainty.

Still, it is becoming increasingly clear that the current system is fraying at the edges.

How to fix the system was the main topic for the New Jersey State First Aid Council’s mid-year conference, recently held in Eatontown.

One delegate, Shrewsbury’s Paul Roman, urged the expansion of the state’s Length of Service Awards Plan (LOSAP) as an incentive to volunteers.

That is the wrong way to go. Ever-greater incentives cannot be used as a way to increase volunteerism.

Either you’re a volunteer or you’re not; there is no such thing as a volunteer who participates in something for material gain he or she will receive for performing a task. There is a word for people who do that — it’s employee.

The president of the council, Frederick L Steinkopf, raised another, more important, issue. Steinkopf noted that the recent test imposed on first aid volunteers by the state is resulting in a failure rate of more than 50 percent. It is obvious that such a test goes a long way in preventing a first aid squad from attracting and retaining members.

If the tradition of a volunteer community first aid squad is to be preserved, the qualifications necessary for those who wish to serve must be re-examined.

If the test does not reflect the skills needed to provide an appropriate response in an emergency, it should be changed. If it is found to be a reasonable measure of the skills a first-aid squad member needs, then the volunteer system may well have to be dismantled.

That is distressing, but the person who needs help in an emergency would clearly rather pay for that help than go without it because no volunteers were available.