GREENE – The lack of sufficient ambulance coverage in the county since a private company scaled back services earlier this year has at least one elected official suggesting that Chenango County should do more for its constituents.
“What’s the county going to do with EMS (Emergency Management Services)? ... We built a $30 million thing up on the hill over there to keep the bad guys. What are we doing for the rest of us?” Jack T. Cook, R-Greene, said before members of the Safety and Rules Committee Wednesday.
Cook was referring to the county’s new Public Safety Facility in the Town of Norwich.
It wasn’t the first time the Greene supervisor expressed his concern since Superior Ambulance Services of Binghamton, in business locally since 1996, cut back in mid-January from three emergency vehicles to one. Cook told members of the Planning and Economic Development Committee two weeks ago that he would like “to give something more than a jail back to the taxpayers” and suggested “an ambulance would be good.”
EMS departments in the City of Norwich and southeastern portions of Chenango County have been most affected by the lack of ambulance service countywide, according to Chenango County Emergency Services Deputy Director Matt Beckwith. The towns of Bainbridge, McDonough, New Berlin, Pharsalia, and Smyrna do not offer their own EMS services, so crews from the county’s seat, Greene, Oxford, Sherburne and South Otselic have been forced to pick up the slack.
During an update for the committee meeting yesterday, Beckwith said the state Department of Health is “well aware of the crisis.”
“We have been working with them, meeting with Superior and reaching out to other counties to explore their countywide EMS systems,” he said. “We are working on mutual aid now, but I don’t know a long term fix.” Some counties in the state do manage their own EMS teams and operate ambulances, he said.
Chenango County Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard B. Decker said ambulance services are currently a local service only. “The county doesn’t fund EMS. The only involvement that’s the county’s is our emergencies coordinator,” he said.
“I don’t know that there is an answer,” Decker told Cook earlier this month.
Higher operational costs for fuel and payroll were the reasons Superior Ambulance cited as cause for the cutback. Cook suggested that the privately-held company’s call volume wasn’t less, but actual service may have dwindled.
“I can understand why they would want to cut back if they made a run for it and another ambulance on the scene made the delivery,” he said.
Richard Barner, director of customer relations and marketing for Superior, said such competition was not unusual and wasn’t a reason for scaling back. “It happens all the time everywhere in this business,” he said.
Barner said he met with Beckwith two weeks ago, but no changes to the company’s current ambulance coverage are being planned.
Beckwith said the time commitment to complete DOH certification requirements have made recruiting volunteer EMS technicians as well as firefighters difficult at best.
Safety and Rules Committee Chairperson Alton B. Doyle, R-Guilford, said EMS volunteers “have to have almost a doctor’s degree” to serve.
Beckwith said many counties are calling on the DOH to lower requirements due to lifestyle changes. “You don’t want to lower your standards, but society has changed. People don’t have time for a family life, a second job and the commitment required. There’s just so much a person can do in a day,” he said.
Town of Columbus Supervisor George G. Coates said people should be aware that there will be “a tremendous increase in cost” if there were no volunteers. “Has anyone figured out how much money it would cost municipalities?” he asked.
Town of Norwich Supervisor David C. Law suggested the cost would “double or triple your tax base.”
Beckwith said he has asked Commerce Chenango executives to encourage their members to allow employees time off for community service. “More and more (businesses) don’t allow them to go,” he said. “... The old neighbor helping neighbor idea has got to be reintroduced.”
Beckwith pointed to Columbus-based Golden Artist Colors’ commitment to community service by paying employees for 80 hours of volunteering annually. “Very few businesses show that type of commitment to the community,” he said.
Beckwith said the county has begun recruiting volunteers within area school districts. He commended the Sherburne-Earlville School District for requiring seniors students to complete 15 hours of community service in order to graduate.