Does Your Church Need a Medical Response Team?
Any church could experience a person having a medical emergency. Emergencies can happen at any time without members being aware of anything unusual. Often, no one is aware of it because the individual is quietly escorted out of the service by a family member without anyone noticing. However, I know of ministers clutching their hearts while delivering a message and collapsing to the floor. I once had to monitor an associate minister’s airway while waiting for an ambulance after he ingested a brownie he did not know was made with peanut oil. He was seriously allergic to peanuts.
Why Medical Teams Help
All churches are at risk of having a medical emergency on-site. If the church has a children’s ministry with a playground, those odds significantly increase. If the church has a growing congregation, the odds grow even more. In every large crowd, numerous people have heart disease, COPD, mobility challenges, autoimmune conditions, and other problems, making them vulnerable to a medical collapse. In addition, if an individual with a mental health condition attends during a service when a strobe light begins to rotate, the crowd becomes loud, clapping with excitement, and the feel of the drumbeat throbs through the floor, it can trigger a PTSD reaction or overstimulate someone with autism or a person with schizophrenia who is hallucinating. Other areas of potential risk include the elderly who fall and break a hip, children on playground equipment who jump and break their neck, and people viewing cell phones who step in front of cars.
Responders Wait for Help to Arrive
Emergency response times after calling 9-1-1 may vary significantly based on the Emergency Medical System’s (EMS) call volume, complexity, distance from the scene, and the availability of a team to respond. When creating a Medical Response Team, it’s wise to know the typical EMS response time in your area to plan for necessary resources. For instance, if you know EMS will arrive quickly, access to oxygen would likely never be needed. However, if your church was more than thirty minutes from the nearest EMS station and the EMS team was all volunteer, you could expect a long wait before help arrived. In those circumstances, you might want additional rescue equipment and supplies to be on hand to support you while waiting. Once you accept care, you are responsible for them until you hand them off to another responsible medical person.
People Pitch in During an Emergency
Even if you do not have a formal plan, you have an informal one by default. In an emergency, people almost always step up to help. Typically, someone with a medical background will step forward to take action. In the event that person is the third assistant to the second in command of the person in charge of the unused X-ray machine in room 222, Virginia has a Good Samaritan Law to protect anyone who gives reasonable help in good faith in an emergency without compensation in Virginia. Here’s what it says:
Good Samaritan Law
- 8.01-225 of the Virginia Code states that any person who “in good faith, renders emergency care or assistance, without compensation, to any ill or injured person at the scene of an accident, fire, or any life-threatening emergency, or en route therefrom to any hospital, medical clinic or doctor’s office, shall not be liable for any civil damages for acts or omissions resulting from the rendering of such care or assistance.”
The law under section 8.01-255.3 provides protection for the administration of epinephrine in an emergency if the person has reason to believe an individual is about to suffer a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction. Section 8.01-255.6 protects the volunteer performing emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), cardiac defibrillation, including, but not limited to, the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED), or other emergency life-sustaining or resuscitative treatments or procedures.
These protections apply to both trained medical professionals and those without medical training, provided the care is reasonable, given in good faith, and without any expectation of compensation. Therefore, anyone can offer help without fear of being sued.
Establishing a Medical Team
Based on the probability that you will need help one day, having a medical team is a good idea. If you have a medium-to-large congregation, consider exploring the option of having a medical team available at worship services and special events. Conduct a meeting or survey to determine who would be interested in forming a medical team. Solicit anyone with medical training: RN, LPN, patient care assistants (called by various titles), emergency technicians (multiple levels), medical staff members, and all in training for those positions.
You may consider anyone who has training in CPR, first aid, or other relevant medical experience that you believe is suitable for the care you wish to provide, with the approval of your attorney, insurance provider, and leadership. Some church leaders will only feel comfortable using individuals with active licenses. In contrast, others will accept individuals who have provided care to chronically ill family members with complex medical conditions for years and are very well trained but not licensed.
If you only consider those with active licenses, you may overlook all those who have retired due to medical reasons or left the profession due to disillusionment. However, insurance and liability concerns are significant considerations, and the decision regarding who can participate is best made between those in authority and those who defend the church’s reputation and financial interests in the event of an adverse outcome in an emergency.
What service do you want to provide?
You can be as complex as you wish, but many requests are cuts and scrapes from falls – i.e., first aid needs. Being present during worship services, Sunday school, or other church-sponsored events. However, you may want to make your team available for other special events. For example, if you offer a special needs ministry that has an event, would you like to provide coverage for them? What if the children’s ministry had an impromptu bike riding event for an afternoon? Would your team be expected to cover that event?
Once the team is created, members will begin to expect them at all events. If a medical emergency occurs without the team being present, negative publicity, as well as a rift within the congregation, can emerge. Therefore, all “what if” scenarios should be addressed by department leaders in conjunction with the medical team leadership when the group is created, so everyone is aware of the expectations and responsibilities from the start.
Good luck! You are well on your way to having a team now. I’ll cover how to get one started under “Creating a Medical Response Team.”
