Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
By WILLIAM MURPHY
Newsday (New York)
A volunteer ambulance corps has told Nassau County it will stop providing emergency service to beaches on the eastern end of Long Beach Island beginning May 1.
The decision by the Point Lookout-Lido Fire Department will force county police to station one of their public ambulances in the area during the summer beach season, or run the risk of long waits as ambulances from other areas make their way through traffic.
The situation highlights an increasing problem for Nassau and Suffolk counties: a greater need for ambulance service while fire and ambulance companies are having trouble recruiting volunteers.
Those companies also are often burdened with serving properties that are not part of their tax bases. The Point Lookout-Lido department covers Town of Hempstead beaches, marinas, a golf course and three Long Beach public schools that are not in its tax base, according to Chas Thompson, chairman of the department’s Board of Trustees.
“About 68 percent of our [fire] district is not taxable and 40 percent of our calls are from those areas,” Thompson said. He said the department made about 600 fire and ambulance runs last year.
There are fewer than 5,000 year-round residents in the two communities, according to the 2000 Census, but officials estimate that up to 60,000 people flood the area on a weekend day in the summer.
The county could help by providing funds to hire some full-time ambulance staffers to take the burden off the volunteers, Thompson said.
“There could be other solutions, but we need some help. Our people are getting burned out, answering up to nine beach calls during a big surf day in the summer,” he said.
The volunteers have been providing ambulance service under an agreement that goes back about 10 years when then-Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta funded an ambulance for the department, which now has two ambulances equipped with Advanced Life Support equipment.
Thompson and other local officials are scheduled to meet Monday with Nassau County Legis. Denise Ford (R-Long Beach) and aides to Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi.