(a) Any person, firm, partnership, corporation, municipality, volunteer units, or any other business or organization providing ambulance service shall, at the time of license application, furnish the director of health with a list of all persons authorized to act as an attendant of any ambulance owned or operated by the applicant. Further, all applicants shall submit to the director the person who shall serve as the emergency medical service physician medical director (the "physician medical director"). The physician medical director shall be a physician board-certified or board-eligible in emergency medicine and/or E.M.S. The physician medical director must have an active Rhode Island license to practice medicine. The ambulance service coordinating advisory board shall establish standards for the duties and responsibilities of the physician medical director.
(b) The director shall provide application forms for licenses under this section.
(c) Subject to the approval of the board, the director shall make reasonable minimum standards of health, performance, fitness, education, and moral fitness. The director may use the guides established by the American College of Surgeons' Board of Regents as a standard, except that a felony conviction shall not necessarily disqualify an attendant.
(d) Each applicant shall hold a current certificate of completion of either:
(1) An emergency medical responder course;
(2) An emergency medical technician course;
(3) An advanced emergency medical technician course;
(4) An advanced emergency medical technician-cardiac course; or
(5) A paramedic course.
These courses shall be approved by the board. The certificate needed shall be decided by the person, firm, partnership, corporation, municipality, or any other business or organization providing ambulance service employing the individual licensee or in the case of a volunteer unit the unit for whom the individual licensee is volunteering for.
(e) If there is a hardship imposed upon any applicant for a license because of an unusual circumstance, the applicant may apply to the director for a temporary waiver of the licensing provisions for good cause shown. The director has the power to waive licensing provisions for a period not to exceed ninety (90) days.
History of Section.
P.L. 1974, ch. 264, § 1; G.L. 1956, § 23-52-8; P.L. 1979, ch. 39, § 1; G.L. 1956, § 23-4.1-8; P.L. 1983, ch. 281, § 1; P.L. 2021, ch. 371, § 1, effective July 13, 2021; P.L. 2021, ch. 372, § 1, effective July 13, 2021.