PC in Swedish fire service puts lives in danger

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Right ,and it's not rational and intelligent to hire people dangerously under-qualified. That can't be justified imo.

There are but at a particular point in time there may just happen to be more good male doctors graduating and applying to a particular hospital than female ones, for example. If at that time the hospital was trying to fill a quota -they had too many men and not enough women and so they hired a sub-par female doctor rather than a more qualified male one they may end up not hiring the best person for the job. I think this would be terrible in medicine.

Would it be terrible? Quotas aren't meant to and shouldn't be used for hiring people that are dangerously underqualified, or for anyone that can cause danger or damage, I think that is pretty clear for everyone doing this practice. It would cause a drop in quality, - without risking "dangerous" situations, but would it be terrible? It is after all the necessary step towards a goal that many think is very important. What you wouldn't get, is elitist enviroments and elitist (like those that are privatized)hospitals, you woud get regulated and careful institutions instead. I think this sacrifice may justify the end goal. It's fairly successful in the examples that I know of. I don't know if you actually need those elitist hospitals, collectivity and cooperation in public hospitals is better, socially.

.....but this article is about just that, people hired for a job when dangerously under-qualified (fire-fighters who can;t life people to rescue them) being hired because employers are pressured to meet quotas. That is terrible.

Edit:As to the second part of your comment all I can say is I wouldn't want to be the person making that sacrifice. If a doctor was hired because there weren't enough female doctors in X hospital at the moment and X hospital was worried about getting sued but that doctor was satisfactory but by far not one of the best candidates, then I wouldn't want my delicate surgical procedure done by that doctor. My brother-in-law is head of Thyroid Oncology at a teaching hospital (he also teaches med school) and he'll tell you even the best doctors can make mistakes occasionally and some doctors are better than others and the best doctors make fewer mistakes. The not as good ones aren't dangerously unqualified, they're not some quack wielding a scalpel but they are they're still a little more likely to make mistakes and if I'm the one having a delicate surgical procedure I want the best possible doctor , politics be damned.

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 01 Apr 2013, 11:39 am, edited 2 times in total.

I suppose the females that can't perform adequately could keep their badge and current pay, but be moved to kitchen duty.

I think you dont understand, that there are major differences between US firegihters and firefighters in most of the european country.

Being a firefighter is no highly respected job that is payed well, because in most of our countries, fire fighters are completely volunteers. So it is no job. Noone gets payed, so he can train and work to be a firefighter all day. Comparing them to professional fire fighters is like comparing US-Marines to some farmers that do some volunteer training regularly that are fighting, as good as they can, because they are forced to. Its normal that there are differences because the US marines gets trained all this day long, BECAUSE THIS IS HIS JOB, while a farmer that does some volunteer training, only can do that, when he isnt forced to do his normal job. So its pretty normal, that a trained professional fire fighter, will have more skills, then a volunteer.

There is normally also no limit to the amount of people, that are volunteering. So no volunteer woman is taking away a volunteers mans job, because the more people that train to be firefighters for their village or city, the better.

Why? - If somethings happens, then all available firefighters start. If its night or evening, this will be many. But if its during day, then most men and many women are on work. So normally the first ones are retired people that dont work anymore that have experience, teenagers and young people that still go to the school in the village/city, woman that are at home because of being housewomen, finding no job or having babytime and the few men that are at home because of being housemen, or finding no job. When these first people arrive then the jobs are done by those, that are best suited, by the gathered firefighters. So a heavy job will be done by the one, that is strongest among the ariving volunteers. Around the country, its is also pretty normal that available volunteers from the neighbor towns will also come to help them.

Also the work of our firefighters cant be compared to your firefighters. So our firefighters you could see are local technical emergeny service. So they are the ones with the machines to cut people out of cars for the emergency doctors, they are the one you call when nature catastrophes happen and you need volunteers, they are the ones that have the machines to get water out of your cellar or create walls with sandsacks, if there is a flood. They are servicing extinguisher, checking and guiding companies to prevent fires, training children in school .... So they have lots of jobs, but only a part of them is about real fires.

If the first arriving volunteers check, that they are faced with a greater emergency, or if it is known from the beginning (so an already burning house or such things) so the gathering available forces will not enough, then the other volunteers are informed of this. So volunteer firefighters, that have jobs around the village/city will join in. The companies and jobgivers are forced to let them go in case of an emergency with life danger. So there will be much more firefighters within a few minutes. Only if a major catstrophe happens, as example a burning factory storage, a car crash with 25 cars or such things, then every volunteer will come, even the ones that are working outside the villages.

So a normal house fire at the country looks like that: The emergency comes in, some volunteers that signed up to stay in the fire department for the day, start to prepare the machines. People that live surrounding the fire department join in, together they will drive to the burning house, some remain preparing the remaining machines. In case of a burning house the other volunteers are already have been informed, so while the first teams arrive other volunteers are already driving to the fire departement, where other volunteers already prepare everything for them, so they also can start as fast as possible. So at a house fire I watched, there were as example 2 cars at the house after 4-5 minutes, 2 other cars from neighbor villages with their "stand by" crews were there only 2 minutes later to aid them. In the meanwhile, the other volunteers that were working or dont live around the fire department, drove to the fire department, and use the already prepared cars, so normally around 10 minutes afterward they join in.

Who will be doing what depends not on "Who is the best suited person around the complete world." but simply on "Who is the best suited person for the job, that is actually available." And sure a 16 year old teenager will not break doors, like a more stronger grown up men. But normally, when he is not suited yet to do so, he wont get that job. ^^ So there is a lot of work to do at fires, that dont force people to be that muscular, so sending home the not so strong ones, because of them not being able to blow a door, would be a problem for the whole group, because people that would be able to blow doors, were forced to do the jobs, that dont needs muscles to blow doors. So less people that are able to blow doors would remain.

Isn't this to do with strength, not gender?

Obviously, women on average are less strong than men. But why not deal with the issue directly, and demand that a firefighter must be strong enough for the job, using scientific tests?

I guess it would be more of a burden on women than men, if it is more difficult for a woman to increase her strength than a man (note: I have no idea if this is actually true). But it's a better solution than casting suspicion on the competence of female firefighters in general.

As I told, it would be nonsense. If there is a fire you need people that do first aid to rescued persons, who help the ones that got smoke into the lungs, warn neighbors, carry tubes to the water ponds or other water supplies, people that control the technique around the car, people that coordinate between the different village groups so you dont have a chaos and so on.

Applied on volunteers: Instead of 10 physical strong persons with experience, and 30 others helping them, so the 10 can concentrate fully on doing their job, your solution would lead us to 10 physical strong persons, forced to do everything alone.

And I dont know, why its such a problem that some women couldnt open a door. Our senior firefighters that are around 65 also wont break a door, with bad luck they will break their bones when trying, so absolutely noone thinks of them doing such stupid things. Still they have experience and can do lots of other job. So as example when they are forced to go into a house because of an remaining person, and there still has no better person for doing so arrived, one old one would gather himself with some of the young ones, and they do the breaking while the following old one can make sure, that they dont do something dumb or risk their lifes, out of lack of experience. And it might seem strange for you, but most of the work our fire fighters do, are not about fire. Our local fire departments are more technical centers, with which we support ourself as community, with many things that one alone couldnt afford. And around the country its pretty normal that every family is volunteering at the fire department, and doing training, because we dont have official "working" firefighters. We have to depend on ourselves in case of emergency. So around every 10th person is actively volunteering as firefighter and around every fourth has been volunteering.

I think the best comparison would be to fires in earlier times, before you had professional fire fighters. If you saw it burning at your neighbors farm, the village gathered and everyone tried to help as best as he could. This is how it still works in most european countries. So we gather money as a village or town (The stuff is expensive, but normally also businessman and companies are willing to help with money, because they also dont like their houses burning.) and when somethings happens, everyone available is trying to help in the best way he/she can do. Or as example the following picture shows the "core force" of on of our neighbor villages fire departement. So they are the ones that are send to competitions, the elite. ^^ If we would decide, that everyone not able to brake a door easily, isnt allowed to be volunteering for the fire department anymore, then there will be few left to fight our fires. XD




Some are breaking doors, and others are organizing events to gather money. And everyone is working together, so every person is an advantage to our community. Anyway if they can break doors or not. At a soup kitchen, it sure would be nice if everyone had a Dr. in social work and social therapy. But noone ever would have the idea, that someone that is no specialist for social therapy, should no longer be allowed to volunteer in a soup kitchen, because of a person that isnt interesting in doing so, would do the job better.

I don't think I actually disagree with you on the principle. But you obviously know more than me about the details. Basically, let's take a subset of Firefighters: Firefighters Who Need To Be Strong. The category of Firefighters Who Need To Be Strong should discriminate on the basis of strength, but not on the basis of gender.