Administrator Dennis Recker unveiled Mayor Mark Stoner’s proposed 24/7 Advanced Life Support (ALS) system for the city at a meeting this month that guarantees a paramedic will respond to an emergency medical call.

Recker presented the proposal, which will be implemented in two phases, at a July 7 council meeting.

Stoner did not attend the meeting.

Administrator Dennis Recker said the city currently has 10 paramedics, nine of which are available for routine shifts throughout the week.

Phase 1, which would last until Oct. 15, would provide 24/7 Basic Life Support (BLS) with occasional ALS, based on staffing capabilities, said Recker.

“There would be two firefighter/qualified paramedics or EMTs or a combination of firefighters/EMTs to cover and provide for Basic Life Support services. The intention of that phase is to bring in a program that offers certain BLS coverage while allowing the fire department to recruit, certify, train and otherwise prepare paramedics who would become city employees to cover 24/7 ALS shifts eventually in Phase 2,” said Recker.

“All scheduled personnel will be on duty at the city fire station. The intent is to provide flexibility in staffing. But as often as possible, I think the goal here is to make sure we have reasonable sized shifts where individuals on duty would be performing a wide range of additional maintenance facilitation preparation and inspection services in addition to responding on a priority basis to any EMS emergency,” said Recker.

The $4 per hour pager on call system was eliminated, he added, to manage costs.

“Also, the coverage of having the BLS is kind of inclusive, and having two people ready to respond at the station would kind of make the pager system unnecessary,” said Recker.

He added that fire department personnel did not want any limitations placed on tone out responses due to costs.

“It was pretty much arrived at that the mayor did not want to see any of those restrictions. The firefighters were pretty much unanimous in that. They wanted to preserve the on call volunteer fire status and felt it was pretty important not to have any restrictions on respondents to the tone out even though you have two people at the station,” he said.

Phase 2, which would start on Oct. 15, consists of two person teams providing 24/7 staffing, including a minimum of one certified paramedic per shift, said Recker.

“The goal here of course is to provide 24/7 ALS coverage. Services will be coordinated…to ensure 24/7 primary team coverage augmented by volunteer staff response. So that’s in addition to more than likely an EMT and a paramedic responding at initial tone out. Whether they are deployed to the actual site or not is a command matter and there are procedures that they follow for that,” he said.

The proposed pay scale is $13 per hour for a certified paramedic, he said. Currently, the scale is $12 per hour.

“This proposed pay scale is not to apply to drills or anything other than response to EMS as part of this proposal,” said Recker.

“One of the things council will have to decide in this is,can the cost of the program and the coverage it provides be done as a priority with some effort to control costs above and beyond that?” he said.

It was recommended that personnel who report to the station but are not deployed as part of an EMS call be paid $8 per hour, said Recker.

“That was driven by a desire for fairness. Obviously, it is not right not to pay a paramedic or EMT who is not on schedule but available in response to the tone out,” said Recker.

With only 10 paramedics in the department, who have outside obligations, it’s impossible to fill all the shifts for 24/7 coverage, said Recker.

“The shortfall was estimated by the deputy chief to be 120-180 hours per month. Coverage for these shifts could initially be commercial, and this met with heavy opposition from the fire department. That resulted in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 proposal,” said Recker.

The ALS proposal must be approved by council before it goes into effect.

If the city hires paramedics outside the city, council would have to determine whether they should be required to meet all training obligations and be firefighters. “They should have the same basic mandatory requirements that any fire department member would have,” said Recker.

The ALS proposal includes a full-time fire chief.

“Essentially, the current recommended allocation of revenue covers the program, both Phase 1 and Phase 2, and covers the cost of a benefit package, for a full-time fire chief,” said Recker.

“There was a point in May in which the mayor had indicated that if we go to a full-time, we’ll have to have drastic cuts in the budget again. Is that done, then? We don’t have to worry about that?” asked Councilman Dave Gallaher.

“I think the discussion has since evolved that this is going to be funded through an allocation of revenue process,” said Recker.

A full-time chief would cost the city $91,000 per year.

The total cost of the ALS program is $260,000 per year.

Gallaher said he had concerns that the city could afford such a system.

“We moved money around to get through a difficult time. And now we’re going to move money around again to develop this new plan. This is going to be ongoing. This isn’t like buying a new dump truck.  This is from now and forever,” said Gallaher.

“This is a great program, if we can afford it,” he said.

Councilwoman Connie Hughes questioned the need for ALS.

“We have coverage from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday,” said Hughes. “That’s been working. That’s what we’ve had. We’ve never had full-time ALS.”

Stoner proposed the ALS program after a series of stories appeared in The Press about a man with breathing problems who waited 28 minutes for the Northwood Fire Department to arrive on the morning of March 3.

Tim Mix, of Parc Rue, died after his wife Ellen called 9-1-1 three times that morning. By the time help arrived, Mix had stopped breathing. He later died in Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center from brain damage as a result of a lack of oxygen, according to his widow.

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