By Kim Smith Dedam, Cara Chapman and Denise Raymo
Press-Republican
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — Clinton County Office of Emergency Services Director Eric Day thinks that every rescue outfit under his wing struggles with an EMT shortage.
“The volunteer model would work fine if we had more volunteers,” he said. “There’s less than there used to be, and also there’s a really high turnover rate.
“Historically, you might have somebody that volunteers at the fire department and does fire and EMS, who lives and works in the community and volunteers for 15, 20, 25 years.”
Not enough time
Now, Day said, though some stick around, many younger members don’t make it past four or five years.
“They go to college, find a job that’s somewhere else, find a significant other, get married, have kids and find the pressures of a family, with sports and everything else, pulls them away from the fire service,” he said.
Demographics
Essex County Deputy Emergency Services Director Patty Bashaw knows just what her Clinton County counterpart is talking about.
“The other thing is, people are so busy, it’s hard to get those volunteers to us,” she said.
“The population behind the baby boomer generation isn’t half as large, and that contributes to a number of issues.”
“It’s demographics,” agreed Essex County Emergency Director Don Jaquish.
“People don’t volunteer like they used to. They are busy trying to make a living and working too much,” he said.
“It’s compounded by the fact that we are losing young people, while families aren’t having as many children.
“Look at the continued decline in school population,” he said, pointing to a report issued last year by the Adirondack Park Regional Assessment project.
Too much to ask
“Beyond the fact that we don’t have the young people,” Jaquish said, “the training standards have increased. You need 104 hours for basic firefighter training over a three-month period.
“It’s getting to be too much to ask people to do for free. The whole aspect of volunteer fire department has become a business trying to survive.”
Tuition assistance
“Since 9/11, we’ve all seen a few new members; some departments better than others,” Franklin County Emergency Services Director Ricky Provost said.
“There is not any waiting list for people to get in, but I think we’ve managed fairly well.”
He said a college-tuition reimbursement program through the Fire Association of the State of New York has helped keep member numbers up.
Even with paid staff
Many communities, among them Mooers, Champlain, Malone, Schroon Lake and Wilmington, have paid staff now — their answer to too few volunteers.
Even so, Bashaw said, they, too, rely on unpaid help to get the job done.
And there’s special-event coverage, Jaquish said.
“Big events like Ironman in Lake Placid require extra support and organization for standby emergency response personnel. This year was the first time we really had issues with finding volunteers to do it.”
Ironman hires Lamoille Ambulance Service, Jaquish said.
“But we have to supplement them with volunteers.”
Need to look ahead
In August, Bashaw gave an in-depth presentation on the topic of too few EMS volunteers to the Essex County Board of Supervisors Public Safety Committee.
“Somebody needs to look at each agency and see where they are at.”
As well, she said, “I think every agency should also be looking at their services and staffing every year and then looking beyond — to three years and five years ahead.
“You need to look at what part of the problem is cost; what part is due to the volunteer pool; what part is training time and what part is leadership.”
County-wide solution?
Bashaw’s hope is that Board of Supervisors Chair William Ferebee will appoint a committee to investigate those issues and find a solution.
“Is it going to be a county-wide system?” she said. “Is there going to be some type of county-wide paid service?
EMTs must be covered by Workers Compensation insurance, Bashaw said — one kind for volunteers and another for those paid for the job.
“Put into one pot; it might be more efficient,” she suggested.
More decline projected
In the Regional Assessment report published last year, researchers projected that the future pool of volunteers in the entire Adirondack Park would decline about 14 percent per decade between 2000 through 2030, a loss of 17,320 potential volunteers.
All of the volunteer fire departments in the Adirondack Park, which includes all of Essex County, about two-thirds of townships in Clinton County and nearly four-fifths of townships in Franklin County, were contacted for the study.
Given the difficulties in recruiting and retaining volunteers, the report found: “25 percent of the volunteer fire departments … expect to hire some paid staff within 10 years.”
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