Tri-Town Ambulance Proposal Moves Forward
By Doug La Rocque
The Mohawk Ambulance Service attended a meeting of town and ambulance squad personnel in Berlin on Monday, November 4 and made a proposal to provide Berlin with a 24 hour, seven day a week Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance service, at a cost of $500,000 dollars a year. The offer was called by Berlin Town Supervisor Rob Jaeger, “fiscally impractical.” Even if Stephentown and Poestenkill were to join in with Berlin, Grafton and Petersburgh, he said the numbers just don’t work.
That development meant the transfer of the Berlin Fire Department Ambulance’s Certificate of Need (CON), the document required to operate an ambulance service in a community, became a priority. The hope is to transfer the CON to the Grafton Rescue Squad, which in turn would co-ordinate the establishment of a paid BLS service to cover Berlin, Grafton and Petersburgh, Monday through Friday from 6 am to 6 pm. The remaining hours would be covered by volunteers, as it is now.
According to Supervisor Jaeger, the Berlin Fire Department’s Directors (not the Fire Commissioners) voted Tuesday morning to approve the transfer of the CON, and that he, as a member of that board, has started the paperwork, and kept the NYS Department of Health up to date, so they don’t slam the door yet on mutual aid to the town. Mr. Jaeger says he expects the paperwork to take about two weeks.
Following these developments, Grafton Town Supervisor Ingrid Gundrum tells the Eastwick Press, “getting this off the ground from the idea stage a few months ago to where we are now is exciting. We rural communities are on our own out here, and I am proud that Grafton is in the forefront with Berlin and Petersburgh in working out solutions to our EMS crisis.”
Rensselaer County officials are also behind the proposal. The Director of the county’s Bureau of Public Safety, Jay Wilson says “this has been a long time coming and I believe there is more work to be done. I am hopeful all of the municipalities involved will continue to work towards a common goal of providing this vital emergency service to the residents they serve.”
The Eastwick Press will continue to monitor the progress of this effort and endeavor to keep the public updated as much as possible.