Advertisement
EMTs pitch senators for more funding
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · May 18, 2017


“What were those numbers again?” state Sen. Bob Dvorksy said Friday morning, turning to West Branch Emergency Medical Technician Sandy Heick.


Heick repeated herself, saying that of the 468 calls West Branch Fire Department responded to last year, 386 were medical calls. That’s 82 percent.

Yet of the 35 volunteers on the fire department, only three have enough medical training to be classified as EMTs, she said.

In an effort to address that, members of the volunteer fire department two months ago determined that new members who primarily want to fight fires also need to attend medical training, Heick said.

This higher percentage of medical calls is the norm, she said, which is why she invited state senators Dvorsky (D-Coralville), David Johnson (Ind.-Ocheyedan) and Kevin Kinney (D-Oxford) to meet Friday at the WBFD.

Area police and fire officials, as well as members of Iowa Emergency Medical Services Assoc., told the senators about the difficulties of providing services and suggested ideas for either raising or shifting public funds toward EMTs.

Heick said she wants the state of Iowa to officially recognize EMTs as an essential public service worthy of some level of public funding.

IEMSA lobbyist Mike Triplett said it may be difficult to place another mandate on local governments.

“Counties don’t like them,” he said. “But we’re beyond that. Rural Iowa is bad and getting worse.”

He said it is difficult to find new EMTs when experienced ones retire.

“There will be a day of reckoning where a call will come in and get forwarded and forwarded and forwarded and no one will respond,” he said. “We’re open to ideas, but we need a dedicated funding system to EMS.”

He suggested counties pick up the cost of mowing cemeteries so townships could dedicate more money to EMT services. WBFD, for example, covers all or part of six townships, all of which pay into the department’s budget.

Both Kinney and Johnson said they did not come ready with answers.

“I’m here to learn today,” Kinney said. “I’m open for suggestions.”

Durant Police Chief Orville Randolph suggested a separate tax for EMT services, rather than one lumped in with fire departments so they don’t have to compete. Right now, departments survive on limited funding, grants and fundraisers like serving food at annual festivals.

“There’s a joke that the first thing we learn is not how to work a defibrillator, it’s how to flip pancakes,” Randolph said.

He pointed out that volunteers often work full-time jobs, and often work out of town, so neighboring departments get called out simultaneously in hopes of finding EMTs nearby.

“If there’s a major house fire, we’re in trouble,” he said.

West Branch Police Chief Mike Horihan said West Branch, despite not having its own ambulance, offers “first-class service” to this area.

“I’ve heard that you’ve got about 4 to 6 minutes if someone stops breathing,” he said. “Our fire department gets there.”

Those first responders then have to keep the patient alive until an ambulance arrives from Tipton, West Liberty or Iowa City.

“(I’d like to do) anything we can do to support our volunteers,” he said.

Heick said she liked the senators’ ideas to spread the word across the state in other rural areas that emergency medical responses are not guarantees. She plans to write letters to the editor to spread around the state as well.

Another idea she favored included tacking on additional fines for speeding tickets or texting while driving since many crashes are caused by such actions. She would like such an idea spread to felonies as well, like drug charges.

“It’s crazy,” she said. “We find these people near death and we have to bring them back. When you charge a drug dealer, there should be a hefty fine on that.”