The FL House votes 98-12 in favor of a bill that will allow Florida Hatzalah to transport patients

thank you mr speaker members yesterday we heard concerns regarding excessive expansion of volunteer ambulance services throughout the state we heard safety concerns regarding transport and quality of care concerns and concerns for the health and welfare of the general public well these concerns are concerns of mine too they were concerns and that's why i included those concerns and addressed them in the amendment that i filed yesterday concerns that were in representative will heights amendments were also picked up in my amendments specifically line 208 we limit the copcn exemption to four counties on line 242 to 44 245 we mandated that all emergency vehicles meet the requirements of the department of health on lines 214 and 218 we deal with advanced life support emergencies in situations beyond the organization's capabilities 200 we mandate dispatch protocols and 206 we deal with disclaimers as to 911 advertising but let's talk about everyone's number one concern the health and well-being of the public and in this case i'll use as an example an organization that was established 11 years ago that's been operating for 11 years servicing a specific community in our state this organization is a non-profit organization that operates pro bono with a team of 18 dispatchers volunteer dispatchers that operate 24 7 365 days a year 72 licensed paramedics and emts that are also volunteers a medical advisory board and a licensed medical director all of which live and work in the community that they serve and by living and working in the community they serve it facilitates an increased availability of trained medical personnel resulting in faster response times and intervention during an emergency in fact the average response time of this organization is two minutes because they live and work in the community they serve versus 12-minute response time of the county and municipal fire rescue service emergency rescue service this bill allows the organization to only operate an emergency response vehicle under the department of health requirements and under no circumstances like some of us have been told is a paramedic going to be taking his patient throwing him in the back of a pickup truck and driving like a madman through the cities of our state it's not going to happen that's not what this bill is about contrarily this bill is about serving the communities with religious sensitivities but let's talk about why this organization is needed and why it's been so successful for 12 for 11 years with no negative impacts many of their community members follow strict jewish guidelines they only speak yiddish or hebrew some are holocaust survivors whose religious beliefs mean that their preference is to be transported and served and treated by a member of their own community someone they know the jewish laws of schomer negia are respected in this community and call for modesty and sanctity and laws concerning an unmarried man not being alone with an un with a woman or a married woman not to be touched by anyone but her own husband or another woman there's no shaking hands like we normally do in ours in our communities that we normally do that i try to understand and still don't know why and this is in addition to considerations of the sabbath or shabbat happens every friday and saturday every week of the year these concerns for jewish law can't be addressed by county or municipal fire rescue nor should they they can only be addressed by organizations such as this this bill simply allows orthodox jewish paramedics and emts to serve and treat orthodox jewish members of their own community under the jewish laws of life so members this bill is not intended to replace county or municipal fire rescue services throughout the state of florida instead this bill augments those services by allowing certain volunteer-based first responders to serve individuals in their own communities that have religious sensitivities for these reasons i ask for your favor favorable support and with that mr speaker i close the question now recurs on final passage of cs for cs for cs house bill the clerk will unlock the machine and the members will proceed to vote have all members voted have all members voted have all members voted the clerk will lock the machine and announce the vote 98 years 12 nays mr speaker show the bill