By Warren Dillaway
Star Beacon
GENEVA, Ohio — Vince Gildone, director of Northwest Ambulance District, has been an employee of the service for 47 of its 50 years of existence.
NAD started with government grants made available to the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Department. The community later took control with levies that paid for the service, and have been supportive ever since.
“Long before I came, this community decided what they wanted,” Gildone said of voters in Geneva, Geneva-on-the-Lake Geneva, Austinburg and Harpersfield townships.
What it takes to get the job done has changed, but the commitment to care for community residents has not.
“We used to have 500 calls a year, now we run 3,800,” Gildone said during a Saturday afternoon open house at the NAD headquarters on Route 534, just north of the Route 84 intersection.
Many former employees and area residents came to celebrate the event and were treated to food and the chance to share memories.
Gildone said the expense of running such a major operation has increased dramatically over the years, and especially since the coronavirus pandemic.
Years ago, a new ambulance cost $50,000, now a retrofitted ambulance with a new chassis costs $380,000 and takes several years to procure. He said a new ambulance would cost $500,000.
There are 11 full-time paramedics with NAD, and part-time staff rounds out the district’s 34 employees, Gildone said. He said many of the part-time employees have full-time jobs and serve when they can.
The cost of ambulance service has grown, and the ability to achieve revenue has become more difficult, he said.
Many calls, such as lift assists and other services are not billable to insurance, Gildone said.
“People need to understand we are an essential service, and you have to pay for it,” he said.
Gildone loves helping people, and that has kept him going even when most of his present work is administrative in nature.
One of the challenges in keeping employees is the ever-growing look to find new employment. He said mental health issues also make people decide to leave the challenging field.
“We see bad things, and you can’t unsee them,” Gildone said.
Scott Parcell and his wife, Valerie, visited the open house and talked shop with Bob Russell, who attended the event. Parcell said he worked for NAD when it was still connected to the sheriff’s department.
Parcell went on to the Mentor Fire Department until his retirement. He said emergency service employees have good and bad days.
Levies are a big part of the NAD financing keeping the ambulances on the road and employees receiving paychecks.
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