Tri-Town Ambulance Is On Hold
by Doug La Rocque
Prefacing his comments with the statement that he is not opposed to a paid day time ambulance service to cover the Towns of Grafton, Berlin and Petersburgh, Grafton Rescue Squad Board of Directors member Jeremy Gosse told a special Tuesday evening, March 16 ambulance forum, that the board feels the squad must first get itself straightened out before it moves forward with the idea. At a Grafton Rescue Squad meeting last week, Sharon Lecce was elected the new Captain replacing Joe Allain. Ms. Leece is also a member of the Board of Directors, who told last week’s town board meeting the directors had rejected the proposed contract between the three towns and the squad.
The Tuesday night forum, put together by David Buckley (Grafton), Amy Zlotnick (Petersburgh) and Tara Fischer (Berlin) also invited the supervisors of the three towns, and county officials and residents of the communities. Rensselaer County Public Safety Director Jay Wilson said the county had been hoping to see the Tri-Town proposal get off the ground, as it planned to use it as a template for helping other struggling ambulance corps in the county, but he understood the difficulties, especially balancing the need to the cost. Berlin Supervisor Rob Jaeger also mentioned that had the proposal been approved and started at the first of the year, each of the three towns could have received a 75% cost rebate under NYS shared services legislation. Director Wilson said he would look into whether or not that could be pro-rated, should a paid ambulance service be formed before the end of the year.
The inability to form an ambulance crew (even just two people, one of which must be an Emergency Medical Technician or EMT) during the daytime hours or even anytime of the day, raises a real concern. Petersburgh Supervisor Dennis Smith, who is also Captain of the Petersburgh Ambulance Squad, talked about the “golden hour,” the time from the onset of an emergency to a patient receiving treatment at a medical facility as well as the “platinum ten minutes,” the ideal time period in a very serious situation, when the patient needs advanced medical attention. Given the current staffing problems and remoteness of the town, this, he laments, is often not possible.
Mr. Smith has been a longtime member of the Petersburgh Squad and recalled days when they had 30 members, but not anymore. He said the changing culture of the nation, with many households having two family members working full time and the dramatically increased training requirements, have worked to drastically reduce the number of volunteers. In fact, he added that many new members often leave after just one to three years of service because of their time constraints.
He also spoke about the cost these days of supporting an ambulance. Petersburgh and Grafton give their squads money, 15 to 16 thousand dollars yearly, but that barely covers liability and medical insurance costs. The supervisor noted even a new stretcher might cost $15,000 and is not money they can raise the old fashioned way, through fundraisers and pancakes dinners. “It takes a lot of pancakes to buy a stretcher.” Berlin is contributing money to the Grafton Rescue Squad for the coverage it provides the town.
Money is part of the problem, according to the county’s Deputy Emergency Medical Services Co-ordinator Ben Barnhorst. He said the cost of supporting a paid staff may not be borne out by the number of calls they answer. So therein lies the conundrum: how do you put a price on a person’s life? The Berlin Town Board has unanimously pledged more than $50,000 toward a tri-town ambulance, but members of the Petersburgh and Grafton Town Boards have brought up the cost factor, about $35,000 for Petersburgh and $55,000 for Grafton. Grafton Councilman Frank Lewandusky told the gathering, he thinks the towns should look for other options, such as methods to increase the number of volunteers. He presented numbers he said were given to him by the county’s 911 center, showing that between 2018 and 2020 Grafton averaged 1 call a week in the daytime in the town, a number that some are disputing.
So given the volunteer draught and the expenses involved for three rural towns, where does it go from here? Director Wilson said the county needs to look into the matter in depth, because the problem is not only in these three towns, it is also countywide where volunteer services are the first source of medical aid. Berlin Supervisor Jaeger added it is not just countywide but statewide and even a national problem.
The meeting did not produce any concrete answers, other than suggesting that there perhaps should be another such forum and the consensus that they are looking to the county for some help or at least a game plan.