History of Emergency Public Ambulance Service in Washington DC

 

Emergency public ambulance service or as termed today emergency medical service for Washington D.C. has followed a convoluted and at times troubled path. Its beginnings in our nation's capital are rooted in the various hospitals and their evolution in service and care. The Civil War is a likely beginning as at the height of the conflict as many as 85 hospitals exist in Washington. A military ambulance corps with dedicated wagons moves the array of injured soldiers from trains and boats to the many facilities most as camps or warehouses of suffering with little in the way of sanitation or proper medical treatment. After the war, Washington D.C. begins to develop as the once river bottom city expands into the hinterlands adding new public facilities and services. This includes new hospitals models for the improved understanding and practice of medicine.

In 1880, Central Dispensary Hospital opens its emergency department becoming Central Dispensary and Emergency Hospital. In 1888, telephone service founder Alexander Graham Bell donates an ambulance to Garfield Memorial Hospital another model of medical modernity. An ambulance is added to Central Dispensary and Emergency Hospital by 1892 about the same period the city's Metropolitan Police Department has several ambulances. Most ambulances of this period are like horse-drawn delivery wagons or hearses used mostly for those less able to pay for a doctor to come to their home.

After 1910, the horse-drawn wagons and modified hearses are replaced by motorized vehicles still operated by just a few city hospitals. Not all hospitals have emergency departments with most open part-time. Central Dispensary and Emergency Hospital near the White House as well as Eastern Dispensary and Casualty Hospital near the Capitol become the mainstay of emergency medical care and public ambulance service. In 1918 an influenza pandemic brings various Red Cross ambulance stations to parts of the city. More like garages, these have nurses and motorized ambulances for handling the array of flu cases already overwhelming the hospitals.

By 1924, five hospitals have ambulances with a sixth run by the Health Department for the indigent and mentally ill. The concept of emergency medicine is as yet to be realized with no dedicated professionals just whoever is on duty to handle an emergency case. Ambulances are staffed by interns, an occasional doctor or nurse on board depending on the type of call. Still, abuse of service in the way of needless calls are a problem and at times no ambulance is available. There is no coordination or dispatching and no way to communicate with units once they are on the street. In early 1925, the District of Columbia Fire Department adds an ambulance as part of its newly formed rescue company. This responds on rescues and fires initially intended for injured firefighters. Over time as service demands rise, the fire department ambulance is used to cover for busy hospital ambulances.

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