Daytime EMT runs will stop without more cash

[MICP2823 0]

ENGLEWOOD – The Englewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps will stop daytime ambulance service unless it receives an immediate emergency transfusion of tens of thousands of dollars, President Paula Weiler said Monday.

The service could stop as soon as Monday, Weiler said.

The ambulance squad was thrown into financial crisis when the city stopped paying stipends for daytime medical technicians at the beginning of January.

The city had to stop the payments when it learned it had been violating a state law that caps at $105,000 the amount a municipality can give to a volunteer squad, City Manager Cheryl Fuller has said. The city provided $144,000 to the squad in 2006, according to budget documents.

Although night and weekend EMTs are volunteers, the hours of 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. are covered by EMTs who are paid between $11 and $14 an hour. The squad started hiring for these hours in 1989, with the city footing the bill.

If EVAC stops running daytime shifts, emergency calls would be routed to the mutual aid service from nearby towns. But with 2,800 ambulance calls last year, that arrangement is not sustainable, Weiler said.

EVAC representatives were expected to meet today with Fuller to discuss how the city could absorb some of the squad's expenses without violating the state cap. EVAC members also plan to raise the issue at tonight's public council session.

EVAC's operating budget is about $130,000 a year, and it has been operating at a deficit for a few years, Weiler said. The squad would need an additional $85,000 to $95,000 to pay for the daytime shifts on its own, Weiler said.

For a city that seems to have money relying on the Volunteers that have needed paid supplementation just seems odd. I know they already have a completely paid FD.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Sounds to me they need to look at providing full paid EMS staffing supplemented by volunteers not the other way around.

[Guest]

Sounds to me they need to look at providing full paid EMS staffing supplemented by volunteers not the other way around.

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I'll second that, ALS.

[MICP2823 0]

That sounds true for most of NJ. I am hearing that these stipends are provided to volunteers by their respects corps, and some of them are substantially large for little work. How can they hold the title of Volunteers with they receive stipends of 5-10k a year?

Here is one better

New Milford NJ has issues answering ambulance calls with volunteers. They back up their failing system with the use of Holy Name Hospitals new BLS division. Here is the kicker. From the hours of 0600 and 0700 they are required to be in the town Monday thru Friday. After 0700 they must leave the town and not drive through the area. When a job comes in between 0600 and 0700 it is given directly to the Holy Name Ambulance. After 0700 they tone the volunteers, wait 5 min, Tone them again, wait 8 min, tone a third time wait 5 min, then call Holy Name's ambulance. That is just a little ridiculous. But just my .02

[Guest]

That sounds true for most of NJ.  I am hearing that these stipends are provided to volunteers by their respects corps, and some of them are substantially large for little work.  How can they hold the title of Volunteers with they receive stipends of 5-10k a year?

Here is one better

New Milford NJ has issues answering ambulance calls with volunteers.  They back up their failing system with the use of Holy Name Hospitals new BLS division.  Here is the kicker.  From the hours of 0600 and 0700 they are required to be in the town Monday thru Friday.  After 0700 they must leave the town and not drive through the area.  When a job comes in between 0600 and 0700 it is given directly to the Holy Name Ambulance.  After 0700 they tone the volunteers, wait 5 min, Tone them again, wait 8 min, tone a third time wait 5 min, then call Holy Name's ambulance.  That is just a little ridiculous.  But just my .02

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Gotta love the politics - it sounds like a pride issue. Rather than hiring dedicated paid staff, they pay the volunteers. That concept never made much sense to me. I would argue that if you live in a town w/ a vac that supplements with paid staff, you should not be allowed to work in a paid capacity, you should volunteer.

As far as paging - the same stuff happens in Putnam. Medics 3 & 4 run a full ALS/BLS rig. When an ALS job goes out the full rig will respond, but cannot transport until the volunteer agency has been paged out 3 x without response.

Hopefully, this particular agency can figure out a band-aid solution in the next few days so that they don't need to shut down.

[IzzyEng4 427]

Sounds to me they need to look at providing full paid EMS staffing supplemented by volunteers not the other way around.

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Our town had to go to a paid day crew about 10 years ago with volunteers over night. Its getting to the point were it might have to go 6a to 12a now, too many calls. I agree also. This is what happens when people call 911 for every type of "emergency" (simple boo-boos to the massive heart) The EMS system in the nation is getting too overloaded.

[MICP2823 0]

The Putnam paging you speak of only takes about what 5 min or so for the decision of Medic 3 or 4 taking the job? And that stands for everyone, a central dispatch for an entire county, what a wonderful concept.

[MICP2823 0]

and until you start telling people over the phone, YOU DO NOT NEED AN AMBULANCE BECAUSE YOU ARE 27 AND HAVE A FEVER the abuse will continue. Another thing that helps with that is a lot of agencies that use Lights and Sirens to the hospital for crap calls. Adding to the misconception that calling 911 for an ambulance gets you treated faster at the ED. And we all have heard it said, You come in by an ambulance to get seen faster, much higher occurrences in urban areas.

[Guest]

The county 911 center was a great step forward in putnam. Per the paging, i think its roughly 5 minutes...but, remember if you break your leg in the village of brewster that ambulance is coming from patterson

[Guest alsfirefighter]

I've see the gambit when it comes to paging in Putnam. I've seen it 5 minutes..I've seen it longer and I've seen it super short when the dispatcher pretty much knew from earlier calls what an agency's deal was.

As far as being overloaded. Yes...to a point. Underfunded, under respected, under understood absolutely. My cry for years is public education is horrible in EMS. I explain to patients all the time what the consequences of their actions as far as calling with what we term non-emergent calls. The problem solver isn't telling people over the phone, they need to be told in person, do what many of us are now doing, drop them in triage like everyone else that walks in with the same problem, empower dispatch (with the shift towards centralized dispatch which Westchester needs terribly) to prioritize calls during times of high volume and stop running hot to every friggin call! And even more so stop placing the reasoning on "the 911 system" or "lackluster dispatching."

Speak of the devil...should be a BLS only response and I"m out the door. Be safe in the snow gang.

[BFD1054 1,552]

Gotta agree with ALS on this one! We have all seen and heard agencies taking longer and longer to respond to emergency calls. It maybe time for agencies throughout Putnam & Westchester to look into going paid or combo!

As for the situation in Englewood, same thing. Sounds as though they should be looking to career EMS, possibly supplimented by volunteer.

[Guest]

Thats whats going to have to happen. During the past legislature elections in putnam a canidate got slammed for saying that he wanted to look at creating paid/combined fire/ems agencies.

Like ALS said, we should each do what we can from the back of the ambulance. I have no quams about giving the numbers of commercial transporting agenices to patients who call for transport to the hospital - and i try to explain to them the potential dangers of tieing up a 911 bus.

[Guest]

That sounds true for most of NJ.  I am hearing that these stipends are provided to volunteers by their respects corps, and some of them are substantially large for little work.  How can they hold the title of Volunteers with they receive stipends of 5-10k a year?

Actually, the Federal Department of Labor determined in 2006 that a volunteer can receive compensation/stipend for up to 20% of what a public agency would otherwise pay a career firefighter. I would assume this would hold true for EMS as well.

The final ruling is about 11 pages, but you can find additionl info here:

Volunteer Compensation

We utilize a hospital based ambulance as primary service between 6a and 6p m-f.

[helicopper 1,050]

The city had to stop the payments when it learned it had been violating a state law that caps at $105,000 the amount a municipality can give to a volunteer squad, City Manager Cheryl Fuller has said. The city provided $144,000 to the squad in 2006, according to budget documents.

EVAC's operating budget is about $130,000 a year, and it has been operating at a deficit for a few years, Weiler said. The squad would need an additional $85,000 to $95,000 to pay for the daytime shifts on its own, Weiler said.

Another great example of media coverage not quite painting a complete picture. If the EVAC budget is 130K and they got 144K from the City, they were operating at a surplus every year?!?!?! If they're going to lose the difference between the amount the City gave them in 2006 and the state cap amount, that's only 39K, not 85-90K as stated.

If the City is eliminating the funding completely, they're outta their minds! ALS hit the nail on the head - it's time for the municipality to take responsibility for the provision of EMS within their borders! Establish a SYSTEM that works and fund it! If the best system is the existing VAC (or rescue squad - that's what you call them in the Garden State, right?) so be it, but if it isn't create something that works.

New Milford NJ has issues answering ambulance calls with volunteers.  They back up their failing system with the use of Holy Name Hospitals new BLS division.  Here is the kicker.  From the hours of 0600 and 0700 they are required to be in the town Monday thru Friday.  After 0700 they must leave the town and not drive through the area.  When a job comes in between 0600 and 0700 it is given directly to the Holy Name Ambulance.  After 0700 they tone the volunteers, wait 5 min, Tone them again, wait 8 min, tone a third time wait 5 min, then call Holy Name's ambulance.  That is just a little ridiculous.  But just my .02 

This is patently absurd - either the volunteers can staff an ambulance or they can't. To wait 18 minutes before turning over the job is freakin' negligent! If they want to hold jobs that long, forget the hospital EMS division, contract directly with a funeral home! As said in a prior post, this is a great example of petty politics and no consideration whatsoever for patient care!

No wonder people drive themselves to the hospital!

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Look everyone on here knows me fairly well from my posts and I don't play the fence game...but a duck is a duck. This isn't a dig at anyone or anything, however nothing dies harder then volunteer pride and nevermind that going combo could enhance a service (if it is run right with good management and even rarer good leadership), everyone looks at it as death of volunteerism. Its ridiculous and when are more going to say enough is enough. Nevermind that it could create hundreds of jobs and attract those whom love doing the job and giving them a good solid life and benefits to do it and generally more then what they may be able to give now. Everyone keeps complaining about upstate economy's and this and that upstate. You know what the highest percentage of some upstate's employment is...corrections. Why cause its there and its the best thing going. God forbid if a combo department was actually used with everyone working together. God forbid if the response times and community service was actually enhanced and better if it went combination. You know what makes or breaks combination fire and/or ems departments...the management....and even more important the leadership. If there is any. Some can deal with status quo, unfortunately too few cannot. The person in Putnam who brought up the combo supplementation had valid concerns and thoughts but instead he'll be labeled anti-volunteer, when actually he is pro-emergency services which is more important and sadly not seen through the dark sun glasses of many with the blinders on the side.

Chris you bring up a great point on the money. If there were more openess with some of the books, there would be little argument for what some VAC's are taking in with billing. Nice jackets, nice uniforms, free coffee, nice stretchers, but nevermind the 10 to 15 minute wait.

[weaselff 6]

The volunteer EMS system is something that should go the way of the horse and buggy. There are far too many calls for the volunteers to respond to. You can talk all you want about public education, but nothings gonna change anytime soon. I have no problem with the VAC's but I think they should operate as they do in the city as private non-profit groups that buff jobs. Every municipality/county should have its own paid-unionized EMS department(seperate from PD and FD). The VAC's can operate with donations and political grants and listen to the scanner and when they have a job in their area they can go out and try to beat the paid guys there. They wouldn't be able to afford the freightliner ambulances with CPR chairs anymore, but they would still be out there helping people and thats the most important thing.

At least with this plan the VAC's could stay all-volunteer.

[Guest]

ALS - You pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Also, do not forget....government loves getting things that don't cost money. There are a lot of cases where full time staffing is definetly warranted but the local government doesn't want to add staffing. With run counts climbing and people's time disappearing, some organizations are left trying to make the best of a bad situation.

[MICP2823 0]

Volunteers should not go the way of horse and buggy. Volunteers represent a very very solid and needed part of our system. EMS, Fire and PD are way too expensive for each municipality who needs one to have one paid.

When the volunteers are there, and united under semi decent leadership they do the right thing and preform a vital service. Either be it fire, or EMS. We need them, but when the times comes that it doesn't work something needs to be done.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

I believe he was referring to the volunteers in that instance... I think (and hope) he was not attacking volunteerism in general.

[ltjay157 10]

A good majority of the problem is the abuse of the 911 system. I've recieved calls on 911 asking for the number for a local agency to the dog running loose in a yard. How hard is it to dial 411? But back to the abuse of 911 for EMS. There is a assisted living facility in our jurisdiction that i dispatch for. They are only suppossed to call 911 for true emergencie ie cardiac arrest, dif breather, etc... They're suppossed to call one of the commercial agencies for routine transport (either Danbury or Norwalk) ie, stubbed toe, general not feeling well. But they call 911 because it doesn't cost them a dime. I've sent an ambulance there only to have them call back 5 min later for another one for a different patient with a true emergency. But because they called 911 for the first patient, unless they refuse to go to the hospital, they have to transport. And it's always at 2-3 a.m. they call even though they complaimed of the hurt toe since noon. there has to be a better way to educate people.

I don't want to start a paid vs volly war but how feasible would it be for departments that have low or no turnout for calls during the day to have a paid fire/ems staff augmented by volunteers from say 6am-4pm? It's getting bad when there's no response after 3 tones. all the volunteers i talk to say they do it to help people. But how much help are we giving when they call & no one shows up? Our first priority should be the best interest of the people we serve.

[weaselff 6]

Volunteers should not go the way of horse and buggy.  Volunteers represent a very very solid and needed part of our system.  EMS, Fire and PD are way too expensive for each municipality who needs one to have one paid. 

When the volunteers are there, and united under semi decent leadership they do the right thing and preform a vital service.  Either be it fire, or EMS.  We need them, but when the times comes that it doesn't work something needs to be done.

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I think you misread my comments. My opinion is the volunteer system should no longer be the primary first responding agency in a suburban/urban area like Westchester. The call volume is too high and unless you live in "fantasy land" this isn't gonna change in the forseeable future.

If you are familiar with NYC, you know there are numeros VAC's located all across the city(mostly Queens, but every boro has at least one) that are supported by private donations and government grants. They listen to police scanners and when a potential job goes out in their neighborhood they "buff" it. They may not have all the fancy toys and unlimited budgets like suburban VACs, but young EMT's gain valuable street experience and serve their communities. Some of these volunteer outfits are: Throgs Neck, Central Park, Bay Side, Corona, Bed Stuy, Jamaica Estates and Glendale amongst many others.

Ideally I would like to see Westchester have some sort of County-Wide Paid Municipal EMS department that serve as the primary first responders. The VAC's could operate as they do in the city, buffing jobs in their respective communities.

I doubt this would ever happen, seeing it would require numerous hard headed individuals to have a spontaneous mutual explosion of common sense. So for now people will continue to die while waiting 15, 30, sometimes 45 minutes for an ambulance that might be coming from 3 towns away.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

A good example is what New Fairfield, Connecticut does. City of Danbury's EMS assigns 1 Paramedic and 1 EMT on weekdays between 6AM and 6PM. Then there is a paid on-call medic for the rest of the time who drives the flycar. It works out great, because the volunteers handle any additional calls when the paid crew is out, and if the second call is ALS, another medic car or ambulance from Danbury is dispatched. Something like that would definitely be worth considering for the towns in question.

[MICP2823 0]

I have heard and seen other projects do things a little different. They employee these Parking Enforcement Officials. When the volunteers are not about to assemble a crew, these officials respond to the ambulance and operate the call.

Another though I would be in favor of is having a combination of both paid and volunteer. But the volunteers must be held to the same level as a paid crew would. Lets say the shift begins at 0600, the crew must call in and be accounted for by the dispatching agency. That way long before grandma falls down and goes boom it is known if there is a crew or not.

[helicopper 1,050]

My opinion is the volunteer system should no longer be the primary first responding agency in a suburban/urban area like Westchester. The call volume is too high and unless you live in "fantasy land" this isn't gonna change in the forseeable future.

If you are familiar with NYC, you know there are numeros VAC's located all across the city(mostly Queens, but every boro has at least one) that are supported by private donations and government grants. They listen to police scanners and when a potential job goes out in their neighborhood they "buff" it. They may not have all the fancy toys and unlimited budgets like suburban VACs, but young EMT's gain valuable street experience and serve their communities. Some of these volunteer outfits are: Throgs Neck, Central Park, Bay Side, Corona, Bed Stuy, Jamaica Estates and Glendale amongst many others.

Ideally I would like to see Westchester have some sort of County-Wide Paid Municipal EMS department that serve as the primary first responders. The VAC's could operate as they do in the city, buffing jobs in their respective communities.

I doubt this would ever happen, seeing it would require numerous hard headed individuals to have a spontaneous mutual explosion of common sense. So for now people will continue to die while waiting  15, 30, sometimes 45 minutes for an ambulance that might be coming from 3 towns away.

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How about a system based on response times and standards of care instead of paid/volunteer? If a volunteer agency can roster a crew in quarters fine, if they can't supplement it with paid personnel. The days of paging out for a crew and hoping one responds is what should go the way of the horse and buggy. How does that impact response times? 10-15 minutes just to get the ambulance on the road is ridiculous.

Let's not glamorize any agency or unit that buffs jobs like the VAC's you desribe. That's no system either!

[Guest]

While your 110% right - only problem is, Chris, finding a politician willing to take the initiative. I had mentioned this before, but when Pat Bonanno was running for a legislative seat in Putnam he was slammed as an enemy of the "volunteer fire/EMS service." He wanted to professionalize emergency services in Putnam because the volunteer’s couldn’t get their act together. Make a long story short, he never got elected and they still can’t get out.