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Area leaders respond to Midway Fire pitch for ambulance service
Article 2 of 2
Midway Fire District (MFD) first approached Santa Rosa County about the possibility of MFD operating ambulances of their own last March. The county had a ten year contract with a national private ambulance service, Rural Metro, that was ending. No ambulance service or fire department can operate ambulances in the county without the permission of the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC). Midway Fire Chief Stephen Demeter said, "Back in March we were asking the county to allow us just to operate an ambulance or two as a back up to the county's contracted service. That would mean that 911 dispatch would still call the private company first for all calls, then if no ambulance was available in our area they would call us to send one. But now we are asking to have our own primary service, where 911 would call us first if there was an emergency in the Midway area." At the time of the request, Demeter said MFD raised issues in March that they asked the county to consider before granting another ambulance contract to anyone. Among other issues, MFD pointed to the number of ambulances county-wide and ambulance response times demanded in the county's ambulance contract that were much slower than current national Emergency Medical Services (EMS) standards. Nikki Gast, Public Information Officer for Rural Metro Ambulance, explains. "We keep track of every call we make, so we knew we were in compliance with the contract. We contract with the county to provide whatever service the county asks for." She said that includes meeting county demands on response times and number of ambulances. Gast said the Santa Rosa County contract requires they provide four ambulances. "But we provide more than that," she said. "In Santa Rosa County we have five ambulances that have assigned stations at set locations around the county, and they move according to what our reports show as areas with highest call volumes. But during peak periods of the day, we provide seven ambulances working within the county." Currently Rural Metro has one assigned location for one of the five ambulances stationed in Gulf Breeze City, to help serve the entire south end. There is another assigned location in the Holley-Navarre area. Demeter said, "We have been talking to county commissioners one-on-one for a few weeks now. I talked to a couple myself, one on one face to face. They told me they are concerned about how us pulling out of the service area of the private company and providing our own ambulances to our area would affect the rest of the county, especially the northern rural areas. They have been told that no private company could provide service to the county if we provided our own service to our own area because the private companies could not make enough profit. My concern is not the rest of the county. I am sworn to protect and provide life saving services to my district, and our people have already shown they are willing to belly up and give us the support we need to make them safe. I do not want to sacrifice our people here for the 'rest of the county.'" Gast, of Rural Metro, did not wish to comment on the proposal for Midway Fire to run its own ambulances out of their fire stations. However, Deborah Roche, of Lifeguard Transportation, Inc. (a national ambulance service based in Gulf Breeze) said, "If Midway gets their own ambulance service it will sectionalize the county. The county pays no subsidy now for ambulance service. But if you begin fragmentation of the county, down the road it will difficult for the county to find any private ambulance service that will be able to serve the county without a subsidy." Gulf Breeze City Manager 'Buzz' Eddy said the official position of Gulf Breeze is against Midway having its own ambulances. "We are satisfied with one countywide provider. it is working pretty well, and when there is a problem, we contact Rural Metro and discuss it. If there are two ambulance services operating in the county, then people some people would be paying one service, and others paying the other. That would mean less profit for the county's main provider. That would mean the dollars one provider would be able to put back into the county for improved services would be less because there is a second provider taking some of the profits." Eddy said one main concern of Gulf Breeze City is how service to the city would be impacted having Midway pull out of the countywide ambulance service. "That would mean the countywide service would need to leap frog to get to Gulf Breeze, and that could be problematic. Right now our fire district has first responders, and they get to the scene to stabilize the patient, and wait for the county's contracted ambulances to show up. That is working fine for us." There is concern that if Midway pulls out of the countywide service, there would no longer be an assigned location for the countywide contracted service in Gulf Breeze, and the countywide service would then need to leap frog over Midway to reach any Gulf Breeze City emergency calls. Demeter said, "if we had a couple ambulances operating from our fire stations, we would of course act as a back up when needed to both Gulf Breeze City and Navarre. "Our taxpayers in Midway are already giving us $157,000 a year to pay for paramedics and life saving equipment. Our citizens have already shown they are willing to pay to have qualified first responders and stateof the-art equipment," he said. "The ambulances we are planning to operate would cost our taxpayers no more money. They would operate on user fees, as Rural Metro is doing. I do not believe our district's 30,000 residents should be penalized and made to sit and wait for an ambulance from someplace else just because residents in other parts of the county have not made their EMS services a priority, or don't have those kind of resources available. My job, I believe, is to offer the best service I possibly can to my residents and make decisions that save lives." |
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