By Tom Bailey Jr.
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright 2007 The Commercial Appeal, Inc.
Some Collierville aldermen expressed doubts Monday that paying triple for more ambulances will improve response times if emergency rooms are full.
“Have the hospitals been involved in any of the talks?” Alderman Stan Joyner asked Fire Chief Jerry Crawford during a work session about the issue.
Joyner said he’d been told that the Rural/Metro ambulances are sometimes tied up for hours at hospital emergency rooms.
What Joyner heard is “fairly accurate,” Crawford responded.
Then, Joyner said, “more units rolling may not be the answer.”
Alderman Tom Allen said, “I don’t think you could get enough ambulances.”
Collierville would be required to triple its spending in a Rural/ Metro proposal to increase the number of ambulances from six to 11, plus another three during peak hours.
The town’s share of the countywide service is now $155,174, and would be $468,630 under the proposed plan.
Rural/Metro also serves unincorporated Shelby County, Germantown, Millington, Lakeland and Arlington.
Rural/Metro says the added ambulances would meet Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton Jr.'s demand that ambulances arrive to urban calls in under 9 minutes 90 percent of the time, and to rural calls within 12 minutes 90 percent of the time.
Rural/Metro responds to emergency scenes in Collierville in 10 minutes on average.
The ambulances respond in Collierville in under 9 minutes 43 percent of the time, but over 9 minutes 57 percent of the time, Crawford said.
The issue gained greater attention after an Oct. 25 incident in which Rural/Metro took more than 31 minutes to reach a heart attack victim in Collierville.
More ambulances won’t guarantee all calls will be made in 9 minutes, but will increase the probability that they will, Town Administrator James Lewellen said.
Crawford told aldermen Wharton was to meet with the medical community to address the role backed-up emergency rooms play in the problem.
The town is reluctant to do what Bartlett and Memphis do: provide its own ambulance service. Crawford has said that would cost the town almost $2 million to start and $1.6 million a year to operate.
The Collierville Fire Department’s paramedics average four minutes in responding to medical emergencies. But victims must be transported to the hospital by ambulances.