NEW BERLIN – The Village of New Berlin’s paid ambulance service will soon begin operating on a 24-hour schedule after officials became concerned by the timeliness of off-hour responses.
Mayor Wade Schrag said he meets with the village’s fire and EMS personnel routinely and he made aware of the difficulty in getting EMS volunteers to respond this last year, especially during late night hours.
“Finding volunteers is a challenge many across the county and the state are facing. They do a great job when they can, but we’re finding we need other ways to provide an effective service. We’re trying to look at the best way to provide better coverage and to be able to support that financially,” he said.
Schrag said from January to November, 52 emergency calls between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the New Berlin area went unanswered.
“We have had 92 ambulance calls at night which could have been covered by volunteers since January 1, and 52 of those calls were not handled at all. Which means approximately 60 percent of the calls, we were never able to roll the ambulance, and the patients had to rely on Mutual Aid, primarily from CMT (Cooperstown Medical Transport), to cover the call with an average response time of between 35 to 45 minutes,” said Schrag. Schrag said in some instances, callers had to wait more than 55 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
Currently the village is contracted to provide services to the Town of New Berlin and half of the Town of Columbus and operates with a single paid EMS staff member from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. The effort still relies on volunteer drivers to respond to a call, but certification for a driver is far less than that of an EMS medical technician, explained Schrag. He said the difficulty was finding enough qualified EMS volunteers.
In January of 2008, cooperative discussions between the village, the Town of New Berlin and Columbus resulted in the purchase of a $127,000 ambulance. Under contract, the Village of New Berlin provides services to the other municipalities and the cost of the ambulance and its operation are shared by all. The three governments also share seats with local emergency officials on an ambulance advisory board, which meets regularly.
“As a committee, we all felt that this was unacceptable to the residents of our municipalities. This also means that the New Berlin Ambulance Service missed out on the billing/collection for services on these 52 calls, which primarily pays for the operational cost of the service,” said Schrag.
Schrag said the committee looked at the calls from January to November and calculated the possible revenue if the New Berlin ambulance had responded.
“We may still end up with some ALS (Advance Life Support) intercepts at night, but will still be able to bill for all of these extra calls. We have calculated this out, so that the revenue recovery will cover this additional expense. So there is no increase in taxes to provide this extra coverage at this time,” he said.
In November, the Ambulance Advisory Committee recommended creating a new Civil Service position for Paid BLS Providers (Basic Life Support). During the daytime hours, crews operate with an already established ALS paid position; the BLS EMT would be hired to cover 12 hour shifts from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., seven days a week, at a rate of $8.50 an hour.
Schrag said the village is currently working the details of the new positions out with civil service, but hopes to hire several new part-time employees and start 24-hour coverage in early January. Only one paid staff member will be on regular duty at any time.
“With a diminishing pool of volunteers, the service faces certain kinds of risks. Going with paid staff, we know there will be at least someone responding; relying on outside support is not cutting it at this point,” said Schrag. “Our goal is to provide the best possible care to the residents and visitors of our communities.”