Wisconsin State Journal
MADISON, Wis. — The ambulances here are used about 300 times a year.
There are car crashes on Highway 16, mishaps in farm fields, heart attacks, babies to be birthed, and sports injuries at the high school.
They don’t all happen after 5 p.m., when the majority of the volunteers for Rio EMS have returned from their day jobs outside this village of 986 people.
And that’s why Bob Posont worries.
Like many other EMS directors for volunteer departments around the state, Posont is charged with trying to find enough available volunteers willing to put in the training and time to be on call and help their neighbors or those passing through in a time of need.
The pool of potential applicants is limited to those 18 or over and within a five-minute drive of the station. The pay is nominal: $12.50 per hour while on a call or $1.50 an hour while on standby. There are no sleeping quarters, which means volunteers respond from home, while grocery shopping at Mark’s Market or from bowling on one of the four lanes at Scott’s Rio Lanes.
“Every community in the country is hurting for daytime staffing,” said Posont, 42, who is paid $3,000 a year as the director and puts in 110 hours a month. “When you place a 911 call for help, we want to be that help. But we need the help to help you. It’s a two-way street.”
According to the Wisconsin EMS Association, there are about 16,000 emergency medical technicians and 375 ambulance services in the state that make upwards of 525,000 runs a year. About 40 percent of those calls are handled by 10 services, including fire departments with full-time staff.
About 80 percent of Wisconsin’s ambulance services respond to less than 1,000 calls a year, and volunteers staff nearly 75 percent of the state’s ambulance services. It is rare, according to the association, for volunteer paid-on-call EMS providers to earn more than $2,500 a year. The average length of time for someone to volunteer for EMS is about five years.
“EMS has found itself at a very critical point,” said Mindy Allen, executive director of the EMS association and a volunteer with Green County EMS in Monroe. “Most people, the most they know is that when they dial 911, someone is going to show.”
There have been times when no one is available and surrounding EMS departments are asked to respond, but that can add minutes to a call when sometimes minutes, or seconds, are critical.
The daytime need also exists for volunteer fire departments around the state. Rock Springs, in Sauk County, considered disbanding its department this year due to a lack of qualified firefighters. It will remain in service for 2011, but its future is uncertain.
The Reedsburg Area Ambulance Service is undergoing a major shift in operations. A privately run nonprofit since 1973, the service is in negotiations with 16 communities to become municipally owned, which will allow it to be part of the state retirement system, get municipal rates when buying vehicles and collect unpaid bills through tax bills. It’s also adding paramedics, who can do more complex medical care, but its budget will increase to $651,000 for 2010-11 from $456,000 in 2009-10.
“It allows us to better care for our community,” said Josh Kowalke, director of the service that goes on about 1,100 calls a year. “This is a very big shift. We have lot going on all at once.”
But the volume of calls and amount of training for firefighting are significantly less when compared to being an EMT. To enter a burning building, firefighters need a minimum of 60 hours of training, according to Pete Silva, education director for fire service for the Wisconsin Technical College System. In Rio, for example, the fire department, with 34 volunteers, will go on about 65 calls this year.
To become an EMT, more than 300 hours of training are required, plus there is ongoing training throughout the year.
Rio’s fire chief, Tony Bradley, 49, has been with the department for 28 years. A construction worker, Bradley dropped his EMS certification several years ago because of the time commitment.
“I just couldn’t keep up the training,” Bradley said.
Some EMS departments have gone to full-time staff to address staffing shortages during the workweek, but for most departments, the lack of calls makes that move impractical. The Rio Fire Association, the umbrella agency for the fire and EMS units, has an annual budget of about $197,000. Hiring two full-time EMTs would cost more than $100,000 with benefits.
When I visited with Posont, Bradley and volunteer EMS driver and firefighter, Lt. Brian Johnson on Wednesday, the ambulance had been idle since Monday afternoon, when a 40-year-old man was treated for chest pains.
Johnson has been driving ambulance for seven years. He can’t treat patients but is a third set of hands and eyes at a scene, fetching medical bags, blankets and splints and calming concerned relatives. It’s his way of contributing.
“It’s not just driving,” Johnson, 28, said. “It’s a lot of multi-tasking.”
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