Ephrata continues with ambulance meetings
EPHRATA — Ephrata agreed to continue pursuing ambulance services as part of the coalition of fire districts, cities and hospitals.
The city council approved hunting for a replacement with an existing group, including Grant County Fire District 5 during their last city council meeting.
The city currently receives ambulance service from fire district 5. The district plans to eliminate its Advanced Life Support (ALS) and ambulance transportation by April 2010.
“Staff has been working on a solution to the ambulance issue, well, ever since we got notification in late October that we were likely to lose our current ambulance,” City Administrator Wes Crago said.
Crago and Fire Chief Jeremy Burns investigated five options, including continuing with the larger coalition, creating a smaller coalition and restarting the city’s ambulance service, Crago said. The estimated cost to the city ranges from nothing to $45,000 to continue with the large coalition to $650,000 to $750,000 to hire an outside professional ambulance service.
“Also three of these options that we discussed would require the city to have some sort of utility fee for an ambulance,” he said. “We picked a number and, literally, this was just picking a number out of the air, $4 per residence … Once again these are just estimates.”
Burns said the “large coalition” covers the current fire district 5 service area, including Grant County Fire District 13, Ephrata, Lakeview and Wilson Creek. The coalition is going to request bids from ambulance providers.
“The idea of the large coalition is that we’re a stronger group. We show a larger need, a larger call volume and revenue stream,” he said.
The second option staff examined was a small coalition made up of Ephrata, fire district 13, possibly Grant County Fire District 7 and Soap Lake. Initial estimates put the cost of the service up to $60,000.
“If you take the City of Ephrata, we are roughly 50 percent of the station 14 service area,” Burns said. “So everything outside Moses Lake that district 5 does.”
Fire district 7 and Soap Lake make up the other half of those calls, he said.
“Based on what they’re doing now, that service area is financially viable,” Burns said. “Especially the way that we’re supplementing EMS in this agency. We’re paying for our EMS by receiving a charge for about $72 a call.”
There are concerns about the level of service the small coalition could provide, he said, adding the current service sometimes has two or three ambulances in the city at the same time.
The next option was a “combination ambulance service.” The city would create an ambulance service. Burns said the city needs to hire at least two more full-time EMTs to pursue this option. It’s estimated to cost between $150,000 to $250,000.
“It would be a reduction in service. It would not be ALS with paramedics and it would not be staffed 24 hours,” he said. “We would expand our volunteer service as well.”
The final two options staff examined were creating a volunteer ambulance service and hiring an outside service. Estimates put the cost of a volunteer service between nothing and a $100,000 and a professional service between $650,000 to $750,000.
Burns said both of these options were “really far out there.”
Crago said this is not just a financial issue, it is a quality of life issue.
“Moving backwards, while perhaps in some ways could be financially advantageous, in the long term, from the staff’s perspective it would be even more negative in terms of economic growth and protecting the citizens of our town,” he said.
The council voted unanimously to meet with the large coalition next week. Crago said the meeting doesn’t bind the city to an agreement.
“It merely indicates through the motion our willingness to continue on with the process towards creating a large coalition,” he said. “Things that need to be decided at that meeting are: the level of service the group would like to see, the response time, some of the qualifications for a prospective vendor.”