West Concord suspends some ambulance services

West Concord has temporarily suspended some daytime ambulance services because of a lack of volunteers.
At a special council meeting last Friday night, city officials told community members they would proceed with a temporary suspension of ambulance service from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The suspension is not a termination of services, Mayor Jeffrey McCool said. The city is working on a contract with the Dodge Center Ambulance Service for them to provide the transporting service between the 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekday hours. West Concord Fire and Ambulance volunteers will continue to provide first response and provide quick, reliable patient care until the Dodge County Ambulance personnel arrive to take care of the transport.
The contract with Dodge Center will be in effect until June, giving West Concord officials time to recruit and hire two full time EMTs.
With the retirement of three volunteer EMTs at the end of the year the city no longer has enough personnel to respond to calls during the day, he said. Volunteer first responders will still answer calls during the daytime and provide emergency services until the Dodge Center Ambulance crews can arrive to do the transport.
Several questions from the audience related to time delays in ambulances arriving. McCool and Fire Chief Chad Finne said response time should not be impacted because the first responders will still be answering the calls. By the time the ambulance arrives the first responders should have the patient ready for transport.
“The ambulance service is not going away,” McCool assured those in attendance. When a call is received by the County 911 dispatchers, they will still page the West Concord first responders and at the same time will page Dodge Center Ambulance.
“Hopefully it will not be a huge impact on response,” he said. “I don’t foresee it as a big issue.”
The temporary change will, however, he said, impact the city budget as the local ambulance will not be billing for transportation for those calls handled by Dodge Center.
The ambulance received 130 calls last year and 50 percent were during the 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. time frame, said Finne.
“This is not what we want but we have no choice,” he said. “We don’t have enough guys to show up during the day.”
There is a lack of people willing to volunteer, he said, and it is a lot to be asking those volunteers who work in West Concord to leave their job every time there is a call.
Ambulance Director Peter Moen said that for 28 years the city always had three volunteers who were available for the calls because they could leave their job. Two of those three have now retired.
There also is an issue with the volunteers getting older. Everything in ambulance work involves lifting and that becomes more difficult as the volunteers age.
When the council became aware of the retirements and was preparing the budget, they made the necessary adjustments and put in place a one-time tax levy to make hire two EMTs and make it sustainable for several years, McCool said.
In addition to hiring the EMTs, the city will continue efforts to get more individuals to volunteer for the Fire Department and Ambulance Service.
The Dodge Center City Council approved the contract with West Concord at their Monday night meeting.