Report: Ambulance

service needs more staff
By Scott Nicholson

Demand for ambulance service could lead to more county costs in a challenging budget year.

Watauga Medics director Craig Sullivan and the Emergency Medical Services advisory board have requested additional ambulance staff based on a 9 percent increase in calls.

Sullivan first made the request during the county commissioners’ planning workshops in February and brought it to a commissioner meeting last Monday.

Sullivan said the ambulance service had received 412 more calls last year than in 2007 and suggested converting a nine-hour crew to a 24-hour crew. Sullivan said this would add more staff during the night when the service is most vulnerable to shortages. That change would create three around-the clock crews to augment the 12-hour crew, which Sullivan told the commissioners would result in no need for new equipment.

However, the change would add 11,592 hours of staff time per year, and could affect the county subsidy for the ambulance service. Sullivan has proposed funding the crew though a rate increase for the ambulance service as well as a subsidy increase. He said an additional $97,544 would fund the extra crew.

Sullivan has also requested a renewal of the service contract, which he has held for nine years and which expires Dec. 31, 2009. The county has the option of opening the service to bidding or operating its own ambulance service.

Watauga Medics has eight ambulances, three more than are required under Sullivan’s contract with the county. Sullivan noted that he’s kept the service modernized and has answered more than 36,000 service calls since 2000.

Watauga Medics received $706,816 from the county for its subsidy in 2008, with the amount based on a sliding scale in step with the Consumer Price Index. In 2000, the subsidy was $700,524 and has gone as high as $814,000 in 2002 and dipping to $637,000 in 2007.

The ambulance service charges $300 for basic service trips and $350 for advanced trips, and $7.50 per mile as a surcharge. Last year, Watauga Medics added a 12-hour crew for Saturdays.

Currently on weekdays the ambulance service has two around-the-clock crews, one nine-hour crew, and an on-call crew for transports after 8 p.m.

On Saturday and Sunday, there are two 24-hour crews and two 12-hour crews, with one on-call crew available for out-of-county transports after 8 p.m.

Under Sullivan’s proposal, there would be at least three crews available at all times and a 12-hour crew available during the day when most routine transports are made.

The commissioners have agreed to consider the request as part of its budget planning, though Sullivan acknowledged in his letter to the county administration, “I realize the timing of this request could not come at a worse time with the current economic situation, but the number of calls will most likely increase with each year.”

The ambulance service contracts are for five years, with Sullivan seeking his third contract.