By Paul Montgomery
The Union-Leader
CONCORD, N.H. — Allenstown and Pembroke officials are talking about forming a publicly funded ambulance service for the two towns and dissolving Tri-Town Ambulance, the nonprofit organization that is the primary provider for both communities.
At a public meeting Monday with Tri-Town officials and selectmen from both towns, Pembroke selectmen said they’re in favor of creating a public ambulance service, while Allenstown officials said they’d have to think about it.
“Pembroke is eager to go in this direction,” Pembroke Selectman Chairman Fred Kline said.
“We haven’t committed one way or the other,” said Allenstown Selectman Jeff Gryval, adding that his board wanted to wait until after Monday’s meeting to make a decision.
“We share your desire to get this wrapped up sooner rather than later,” Gryval added.
Though Tri-Town is mostly funded through revenue collected by the health-care companies of the patients it transports, any additional costs would be taxpayer-funded.
“The cost is anything above and beyond what we can’t cover with revenue,” said Tri-Town Chairman John Levitow, who supports the measure. “It will give the communities more power and ability to drive the service.”
There are a few different ways Tri-Town could be dissolved, none of which was discussed at length during the meeting.
One idea is to purchase and fully staff a second ambulance to beef up response times and rely less on mutual aid.
Annually, Pembroke pays about $126,000 to Tri-Town and Allenstown pays about $92,000. If a second ambulance were purchased and staffed, Pembroke’s contribution would increase to about $261,000, according to Pembroke Town Administrator David Jodoin.
Pembroke Selectman David Sheldon said he supports the idea.
“It’s stability,” Sheldon said. “If Tri-Town goes belly up, we’d have nothing.”
The discussion comes several months after Allenstown firefighters began using a donated ambulance as a rehabilitation vehicle, which can only be used to treat patients at the scene, but not transport them because the vehicle is not fully certified.
Allenstown Fire Chief Rob Martin said the vehicle allows patients to get help quickly when Tri-Town’s only ambulance is already responding to another call.
The vehicle has enough equipment to be certified for intermediate-level ambulance service, which is just short of paramedic-level service, but Gryval said the town is holding off on certification until it completes the Tri-Town discussions.
Pembroke Fire Chief Harold Paulsen said his town does not have significant problems with mutual aid response times because a fire station in Concord is close to the Pembroke city line, whereas Allenstown tends to wait longer for mutual aid from Hooksett, Epsom or Concord.
Jodoin said that a proposal to dissolve Tri-Town was made in 2007, but that Allenstown and Pembroke backed away from the agreement because Hooksett, at the time, agreed to continue using Tri-Town. However, last summer the Hooksett Fire Department fully implemented its own ambulance service and only uses Tri-Town for mutual aid.
Hooksett’s withdrawal drove up Allenstown’s contribution to Tri-Town by nearly $17,000 last year, officials said.
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