By Melissa Jenco
The Chicago Daily Herald
NAPERVILLE, Ill. — Naperville’s budget constraints will mean as many as two fewer ambulances are in service at times.
Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said Wednesday he feels comfortable the move won’t affect response times or service to residents.
“If I didn’t I wouldn’t do it,” he said. “I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the safety of the public and I won’t.”
As the city dealt with a large cash crunch for the new fiscal year that began May 1, Puknaitis had to cut nearly $1 million out of the fire department budget. Of that, about $525,000 was axed from the overtime budget.
From now on, if the department exhausts its overtime allocation for a particular month, Puknaitis plans to take one or two ambulances out of service.
With two ambulances out of service, that still leaves five ambulances, four trucks, six engines and one rescue squad. Puknaitis stressed that all of those vehicles have the same emergency medical equipment as an ambulance with the exception of a stretcher.
“You can make a fire engine work in a way as a medical unit,” he said. “You can’t make an ambulance work as a fire unit.”
Because of that, he decided taking an ambulance out of service rather than a firetruck is the right move and he will continue to evaluate that choice.
In an emergency, the closest vehicle would be sent to the scene — as it is now — and if transportation is needed the ambulance would be sent, too; it just may not be the first to arrive.
In a critical situation, Puknaitis said paramedics wouldn’t be transporting a patient immediately anyway, as it takes time to administer medicine and other care.
“We don’t just put somebody in the back of an ambulance and drive as fast as possible,” he said. “That’s ancient medical care and we don’t do that.”
On some days, Naperville may have some help from a new partner, the Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District. The two recently agreed when each department has an extra firefighter/paramedic on shift at the same time, those two will pair up to staff an ambulance from one of the towns.
Naperville also recently opened its 10th fire station, which was built on the city’s south side. Doing so helped it achieve its goal of responding to 90 percent of calls within six minutes.
Copyright 2010 Paddock Publications, Inc.