Norwich Common Council continues to discuss changes to mutual aid
Norwich held a Joint Committee meeting Tuesday. During the meeting, Fire Chief Jan Papelino discussed new changes to the county's Mutual Aid agreement. (Photo by Sarah Giglio)
NORWICH — The Norwich Common Council convened Tuesday and discussed the recent changes to the mutual aid agreement for emergency ambulance services.
Fire Chief Jan Papelino said he met with county officials to discuss the mutual aid agreement.
He stated that a plan was presented to hire more part-time staff, including Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) staff members.
"He laid out the plan that says that they're going to hire 12 part-time people, BLS people, and eventually four ALS people in fly cars and station them in South Otselic and Bainbridge," Papelino said. "I think it was about $250,000 they dedicated to it this year."
Fly cars are vehicles used by EMS to get to patients and administer aid, but are not equipped to transport patients.
Papelino also stated that an overwhelming majority of the board voted to approve the plan. He said this is an important step in the right direction for EMS services.
"Is it everything we would really like? Not yet. But it's certainly progress compared to what they were doing. So I certainly appreciate that and hopefully we'll just grow and get more with the counties and maybe we can help some of our neighboring counties with some of their issues, and they can kind of back off of what we're doing," said Papelino.
These changes came about after the Norwich Fire Department announced they would no longer be serving outside of their certificate of need (CON) area. Many areas had began to depend on Norwich for their emergency calls, which created a strain on EMS services.
"There's been calls that they would've called us for had we not done that," said Papelino. "If one of the crews that's in the station is tied up on something, the other crew is not going out of our CON area. So we haven't gone outside our CON area with a second rig since that started."
With the new plans to hire more staff in motion, officials expect the BLS and ALS additions to be fully in place by this year's third and fourth quarters, respectively.
Chief Jason Gray pointed out in April's Joint Committee meeting that EMS staff members were extremely overworked. Mayor Shawn Sastri echoed these concerns at Tuesday's meeting.
"When Captain Gray spoke, one of the things that he said that's sticking with me is, he made the comment, 'the guys are tired,' right?" said Sastri. "I hope that the council will look at other options other than a 24 hour shift, maybe a 12 hour shift or something."
Sastri was also concerned that these changes would cause the county to lose some revenue. However, Alderman Doliver said this is a small price to pay.
"I think that in the long run while you might be losing some revenue you're going to gain in other areas. So I think, I really think this is a big win, once this all gets in place," said Doliver. "The fact that the county's moving forward, I'm very pleased with that."
Other council members agreed, including Alderman Matthew Caldwell, who stated "we should probably be as supportive as we can in the county's plan."
Fire Chief Jan Papelino said he met with county officials to discuss the mutual aid agreement.
He stated that a plan was presented to hire more part-time staff, including Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) staff members.
"He laid out the plan that says that they're going to hire 12 part-time people, BLS people, and eventually four ALS people in fly cars and station them in South Otselic and Bainbridge," Papelino said. "I think it was about $250,000 they dedicated to it this year."
Fly cars are vehicles used by EMS to get to patients and administer aid, but are not equipped to transport patients.
Papelino also stated that an overwhelming majority of the board voted to approve the plan. He said this is an important step in the right direction for EMS services.
"Is it everything we would really like? Not yet. But it's certainly progress compared to what they were doing. So I certainly appreciate that and hopefully we'll just grow and get more with the counties and maybe we can help some of our neighboring counties with some of their issues, and they can kind of back off of what we're doing," said Papelino.
These changes came about after the Norwich Fire Department announced they would no longer be serving outside of their certificate of need (CON) area. Many areas had began to depend on Norwich for their emergency calls, which created a strain on EMS services.
"There's been calls that they would've called us for had we not done that," said Papelino. "If one of the crews that's in the station is tied up on something, the other crew is not going out of our CON area. So we haven't gone outside our CON area with a second rig since that started."
With the new plans to hire more staff in motion, officials expect the BLS and ALS additions to be fully in place by this year's third and fourth quarters, respectively.
Chief Jason Gray pointed out in April's Joint Committee meeting that EMS staff members were extremely overworked. Mayor Shawn Sastri echoed these concerns at Tuesday's meeting.
"When Captain Gray spoke, one of the things that he said that's sticking with me is, he made the comment, 'the guys are tired,' right?" said Sastri. "I hope that the council will look at other options other than a 24 hour shift, maybe a 12 hour shift or something."
Sastri was also concerned that these changes would cause the county to lose some revenue. However, Alderman Doliver said this is a small price to pay.
"I think that in the long run while you might be losing some revenue you're going to gain in other areas. So I think, I really think this is a big win, once this all gets in place," said Doliver. "The fact that the county's moving forward, I'm very pleased with that."
Other council members agreed, including Alderman Matthew Caldwell, who stated "we should probably be as supportive as we can in the county's plan."
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