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10/31/2017 12:00 AMConcerns about ambulance response times and a desire to exert direct control over the emergency ambulance services serving residents have led some town officials to consider petitioning to take over control of selecting the town’s ambulance provider, which is currently selected by the state.
American Medical Response (AMR) has been the state-designated primary service area (PSA) provider for North Haven for more than two decades, according to Fire Chief Paul Januszewski. The concept of PSAs was introduced in Connecticut in 1974. A PSA is a specific geographic area served exclusively by an emergency medical services provider designated by the state Department of Public Health. Only the PSA responder designated by the state may answer emergency calls in the specified geographic area.
The state does allow municipalities to petition to select their own PSA provider if they can show the current provider is deficient or if the town’s choice would provide better service. In 2016, the state granted Milford’s petition to take control of the PSA.
Recent conversations about gaining control of the North Haven PSA were stoked at the Sept. 20 Board of Finance meeting. The board heard from Kara Keating, who shared a story about losing a family member on Aug. 3. Keating was upset about AMR’s response time to the incident, saying that it took about 24 minutes for AMR to get to the scene of the incident to provide support. She also said that the Fire Department is understaffed.
Fire Chief Paul Januszewski said that at the time of that call, all North Haven firefighters were committed to a fire on Maple Avenue and five medical incidents occurred simultaneously, so AMR responded to that call without any joint response provided by the Fire Department. Chuck Babson of AMR said from the time the call received to the time the ambulance arrived at the scene was 7 minutes and 32 seconds, and that during that time, AMR was on the phone with the 911 caller, talking him through CPR and remaining on the line until help arrived. Januszewski said the first 911 call for the incident came in at 12:33:45; Babson said the call was then received by AMR at 12:34 p.m.
Babson said the day of the call was extremely busy for first responders across North Haven. He said that AMR sent three ambulances and one “fly car” to the Maple Avenue fire and was also responding to six additional calls.
“We hope to work with the North Haven Fire Department and town officials to understand what happened in this situation and how we can all better work together to improve any discrepancies in service and record reporting, while continuing to provide exemplary medical services to the residents and visitors of North Haven,” Babson said.
Januszewski supports the town gaining control of the PSA. He said town administrators should dictate the performance measures that ambulance providers serving the taxpayers of North Haven must meet.
“Public safety is a fundamental core value for taxpayers, therefore when a citizen has a complaint or concern about public safety, they should be able to hold public government accountable and not have to be subjected to a private company, which may have a different perspective for varying reasons,” Januszewski said.
First Selectman Michael Freda said that if the initiative for the town to get the PSA is successful, the town would select the new ambulance carrier through a bid process. Januszewski said a service contract would be developed which will identify specific criteria based upon industry accepted standards, and transparency will be an integral part of the service contract allowing for the best service available to taxpayers.
Freda acknowledged that some towns, such as Wallingford, transport patients to the hospital via their on-town ambulance services, but he said the upfront cost to do so could be more than $1 million to do that.
Januszewski said the fire department is exploring opportunities to expand the number of on-duty personnel, but ultimately any plan to increase staffing would be at the discretion of the taxpayers after being provided with comprehensive facts.
“We’re finding that due to a decrease in volunteer firefighters, which is occurring nationwide, in conjunction with increasing call volume, we have to plan accordingly to address what an acceptable level of risk to the community is,” Januszewski said.