Proclamation 4535—Emergency Medical Services Week, 1977

Each week more than one thousand Americans lose their lives due to accidents and illnesses because emergency medical assistance is either unavailable or inadequate.

In 1968 the Department of Transportation issued a national uniform standard, "Emergency Medical Services," under the Highway Safety Act of 1966. This Federal initiative has provided essential training courses for emergency medical personnel, vital communications for citizen access, quicker responses and physician direction, and important specifications for ambulances, including necessary medical equipment and uniform colors and markings.

We salute the Nation's emergency personnel, upon whose skill and dedication we all depend.

Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning November 6, 1977, as Emergency Medical Services Week.

I call upon the Governors and Mayors and all other State and local officials to assist hospital administrators and physicians, fire departments, public safety agencies and ambulance services in improving emergency medical services.

I call upon Federal agencies, especially the Departments of Transportation and Health, Education, and Welfare to continue, with renewed emphasis, their assistance to States and communities in their efforts to help those in need of emergency medical assistance.

I call upon the American people to lend their support to these efforts in order that we may assure that no individual in this country will suffer due to the lack of available or adequate emergency help when in need.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and second.

JIMMY CARTER