NORWICH – Rumors about further cutbacks in ambulance service in Chenango County have at least one governmental department director concerned.
Community Mental Hygiene Services Director MaryAnn Spryn told members of her standing committee last week that she had heard the rumor and, if true, that such a move would be “a major problem.” Spyrn’s department uses ambulances at least once a week - and sometimes as much as three or four times a week - to deliver mentally ill patients in need of emergency medical care to Fox Hospital in Oneonta.
Binghamton-based Superior Ambulance Services, in business locally since 1996, cut back in mid-January this year from operating three ambulances to one. The company blamed increased operational costs for fuel and payroll for the cutback.
Since then, city of Norwich Fire Department services and other voluntary emergency crews from Greene, Oxford, Sherburne and South Otselic have been forced to pick up the slack. The towns of Bainbridge, McDonough, New Berlin, Pharsalia, and Smyrna do not offer their own EMS services.
Relying on the only ambulance currently serving the county has already cost employees of Spryn’s department extra time and money, she said. In one recent instance, staff was forced to wait 2 1/2 hours until 8 p.m. for an ambulance to arrive on the scene.
Supervisor James B. Bays, D-Smyrna, asked Health and Human Services Chairperson Jeffrey B. Blanchard, R-Pitcher, if he was aware of any ongoing conversation among lawmakers or Safety and Rules Committee members on the issue. Blanchard said he had not read anything on the subject in committee meeting minutes nor was he aware of any discussions.
“I’m hoping this is being discussed. It needs to be,” Bays said.
Supervisor Richard Schlag, D-German, said the lack of ambulance services was becoming a crisis situation for his town and all of the county’s towns. He said even though German is covered for ambulance service under a contract with nearby Cincinnatus, in certain situations where ambulance personnel must have advanced life support certification, for example, his town is forced to look elsewhere.
“I personally can’t see this remaining a voluntary service,” he said. “We just don’t have the volunteer squads anymore.”
Blanchard said the place to begin solving the pending crisis should begin at the state level. “We should be getting them to back off on all of those training requirements placed on people. That’s the place to start. It would make a big difference.”
Supervisor Ross P. Iannello, politically unaffiliated, New Berlin, said it would take money to solve the problem. “We must find funds to do something, otherwise we are just spinning our wheels.”
Schlag said he presumed that Superior was looking for a contact with the county. Blanchard agreed, saying, “They are a business. They need to justify doing business here.”
Spryn said the Sheriff’s Department at one time transported individuals to hospitals.
Iannello said an entity other than Superior wanting to operate an ambulance business would require county certification.