By John F. Hill
The Press Enterprise
MURIETTA, Calif. — Riverside County’s ambulance provider says it is adding an extra ambulance in Murrieta because the city’s fire department is not meeting its own goal for response times.
American Medical Response announced the move in a news release on Monday, saying it would shift the additional unit to Murrieta by the end of the month. AMR Spokesman Jason Sorrick said the company would then have three ambulances dedicated to Murrieta.
The ambulance company and Murrieta officials have been engaged in a public relations battle over issues surrounding AMR’s contract with Riverside County. The contract, which has never been competitively bid, is up for renewal this year.
“There certainly have been some questions in regards to performance,” Sorrick said in an interview. “And we want to ensure the public we’re going to continue to provide them with a high level of service.”
Much of the discussion in Murrieta has been over response times. The Murrieta Fire Department staffs all of its engines with at least one fully-trained paramedic. The system is expensive, but officials say it’s needed because fire crews arrive at emergencies before ambulances and can start live-saving procedures more quickly.
To keep up with the rising costs of the paramedic program, Murrieta Fire Chief Matt Shobert has proposed charging $350 per call - or a flat $48 per year “subscription fee” - when the fire department responds to a medical emergency.
Shobert said he welcomed the new ambulance, though he said the move was in response to a directive from the county to improve response times in Murrieta, rather than a spontaneous act.
“I can only gather that AMR is coming under increasing pressure from the Riverside County Emergency Medical Services Agency … rather than adding a third ambulance out of charitable good will,” Shobert wrote in an email. “It just takes AMR awhile to implement new things”
Riverside County Department of Public Health spokesman Jose Arballo Jr. confirmed that the agency asked AMR to create a plan to improve response times in northwest Murrieta. He said the agency didn’t specify how the company should accomplish the goal.
Shobert acknowledged the fire department didn’t always get to calls within its targeted 5 minute, 30 second, response time. AMR said the city met its goal only 44 percent of the time, a figure Shobert didn’t dispute.
“Certainly, there are areas of town that we aren’t getting to within our own goal times,” he said. “In this economy, we’re absolutely doing the best that we can right now.”
Arballo said AMR meets it contractual goal of responding to at least 90 percent of calls in Temecula and Murrieta within 9 minutes, 59 seconds. But in some pockets, like northwest Murrieta, the goal wasn’t being met.
AMR says Murrieta’s dispatching system is antiquated, and delays the ambulance company’s response times. When Murrieta Police Department dispatchers send units to a 911 call, they dispatch fire crews through their computer system, but must call AMR on a landline phone to relay the information.
AMR said it has offered to link into Murrieta’s emergency system. Shobert said such a proposal had never been made, though he would be interested in exploring the idea.
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