Charleston Daily Mail
Copyright 2007 Charleston Newspapers
KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. — In an effort to concentrate on responding to emergencies and pay paramedics and EMTs fair wages, the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority may have to cut back on nonessential services.
The back-to-basics approach is necessary to control costs and keep from losing qualified paramedics, said County Commission President Kent Carper, who is also a member of the ambulance authority’s governing board.
“As with everything else in the health-care community in the last few years, things have changed drastically,” Carper said Wednesday. “We need to dramatically change the way we do things.”
Those changes include doing away with medical vans that provide rides to those who have doctors’ appointments, cutting back on nonemergency ambulance runs between hospitals and elimination of ambulance runs for the sheriff’s department to transport mental hygiene patients.
“Our mission is emergency ambulance service,” said Joe Lynch, executive director of the ambulance authority. “We had to look at everything we did and make sure we’re still meeting our mission to provide emergency ambulance service.”
Many of the cuts are being made to provide raises for paramedics and EMTs. Kanawha County is losing 10 to 15 paramedics each year because of lagging pay, Lynch said. Carper said ambulance personnel in neighboring counties make $5,000 to $7,000 more a year than emergency personnel in Kanawha County.
“We have to make sure we have highly trained, competent people,” Lynch said.
Lynch said the ambulance authority runs about 30 ambulances and has about 250 employees. He plans to reorganize paramedic and EMT schedules, move some ambulances off the night shift to provide more ambulances for emergencies and restructure the authority’s leave and sick time policy to save money.
Ten vans run by the ambulance authority that provide transportation for more or less routine doctor visits will also be eliminated, he said. Lynch hopes to make arrangements with local church groups and others to help get people who need rides to the doctor.
Lynch is talking to paramedics and EMTs about the proposed changes this week.