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By KYLE ALSPACH
Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg, Massachusetts)
FITCHBURG — Fire Chief Kevin Roy is again pushing to bring ambulance service to the Fire Department this year, saying the city could earn up to $1 million a year providing the service.
But Mayor Dan H. Mylott says he doubts the program would work and won’t implement the plan.
The idea isn’t at all new to Fitchburg, where it has been debated off and on since the city abandoned a similar program in the early 1980s.
But Roy says tight city budgets and a shortage of firefighters make it an attractive option right now.
“The situation here is becoming more serious. We’ve lost nine positions since 2003,” Roy said Friday. “Leominster made $1.1 million last year (with ambulance service) ... so you can see the kind of money you can bring in.”
The city could earn up to $1 million a year from patients’ health insurance payments with just one ambulance, he said.
Roy said he recently wrote a formal proposal to Mayor Dan H. Mylott for city-run ambulance service.
Under the plan, the first response to a medical call would be a basic life support ambulance from the Fire Department, Roy said.
The ambulance would replace the need for sending a fire truck to every medical call, he said.
“It would save some wear and tear on our fire engines,” Roy said.
Fitchburg would continue getting advanced life support service from the privately-run Patriot Ambulance, he said.
The plan would use revenues from the service to hire five new firefighters at a cost of $300,000 and make payments on the cost of a new ambulance.
The rest of the money would cover costs such as firefighters’ salaries, freeing up hundreds of thousands of dollars in the city’s budget, Roy said.
All firefighters are trained as EMTs and would staff the ambulance themselves, he noted.
Mylott says he remains firmly against city-run ambulance service.
“I’ve heard every argument about the ambulance service that’s possible,” Mylott said. “But I still believe that it’s not in the best interest of the city.”
The city would have to pay up front to hire new firefighters to buy the ambulance and staff it, Mylott said.
Mylott said he doesn’t agree with Roy’s estimate that the service will earn up to $1 million a year.
“I do not believe we’ll make the money he’s talking about,” he said.
Mylott declined to elaborate on why he doubts the figures, but noted he is “very satisfied” with the current ambulance service from Patriot.
“It’s very adequate, and does not cost anything,” Mylott said. “I don’t think we should be entertaining (Roy’s) proposal.”
Leominster Fire Lt. Charles LeBlanc said the city’s Fire Department has provided ambulance service since 1952.
As in Fitchburg, the Leominster Fire Department sends firefighters to every medical call, LeBlanc said.
Leominster earned $1.1 million last year for doing the calls, he said.
The need for this source of money is growing urgent in Fitchburg, Roy said.
Staffing levels for the Fire Department have dropped from 113 to 88 in the last two decades, he said.
This has meant the city can’t fight serious fires on its own any more, Roy said.
“We’re depending more and more on mutual-aid companies,” he said.
Though mutual aid is a “great thing,” Roy said, it usually takes 10 to 15 minutes for it to arrive.
The city needed help fighting a fire at a Madison Street home in January, for instance, Roy said.
“We were waiting for the Leominster ladder company to come in to get to the second floor of the building,” Roy said. “They were coming as fast as they can, but it takes time to get here.”
The fire ultimately destroyed the home.
The City Council passed a resolution in 2003 asking Mylott to implement ambulance service through the Fire Department, but Mylott did not.
At large City Councilor Thomas Conry says he’d like to see the City Council ask again.
“I’m not saying anything disparaging about the current (ambulance) system,” Conry said. “But these are tough economic times, and I think the city could make money. I think this could work.”