Ambulance committee to conduct study

By TOM LAVENTURE

[email protected]

Bessemer — The Ambulance Committee of the Gogebic County Board is currently seeking a firm to conduct a long-term feasibility study regarding rural service operations.

Ambulance committee chair James Lorenson said at the meeting Wednesday that a long-term feasibility study would be conducted by a consulting group or the Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region office. The committee has also studied rural ambulance feasibility studies of other Michigan and Wisconsin communities.

A Green County, Wisconsin study is very similar and may provide a model for Gogebic County, he said.

“This (study) is one of the items that the different governmental units suggested that we use part of the ambulance fund for a long term study to identify what makes the most sense long term,” Lorenson said. “Do we continue to contract or do we run our own?”

County board member Dan Siirila said most of his feedback is for the county not to run its own ambulance service, or at least, “try not to run your own.” He said that a feasibility study should provide cost comparisons and vital information other than just a consultant recommendation.

Board member Joe Bonovetz said that any credible study should advise the county on the best direction in terms of continuing subsidized service, or establishing public service with a volunteer responder network.

“We’re gonna have to decide if we’re going to go with Beacon forever or until the millage doesn’t pass, or we’re going to get a consultant that will say, okay, we can work at giving units of government so much money a year to have them run volunteer departments.”

The emergency medical service millage renewal-restoration will be on all county ballots on the Nov. 2 general election. If approved, the $0.9951 mill rate for each $1,000 of taxable value would be in effect for three years to supplement the countywide emergency medical care, equipment, training and related medical expenses in coordination with Beacon Area Ambulance and Aspirus Ambulance services.

Committee members will offer presentations and field questions at two community forums at the Watersmeet Town Hall at 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, and at the same times on Thursday, Oct. 21 at the Ironwood Memorial Building.

The forums will address “mixed messages” that committee members are hearing on the topic of a public subsidy to private ambulance service, Lorenson said. The negative comments tend to reflect an “anti-tax sentiment” and belief that for-profit ambulance services do not need public support.

“On the positive side, what we’ve heard is that people understand and see that the ambulance is there when they need it,” Lorenson said. “Some people have referred to it as like an insurance program.”

The committee has held recent meetings with Beacon and Aspirus regarding future contracts. The companies reported an approximately 3% annual cost increase along with a serious shortage of trained medical staff.

“They are finding that people are not going to work in fields where there is a lot of face-to-face or people-related contact due to COVID-related concerns,” Lorenson said.

Equipment issues include ambulances on order for up to a year. The rigs currently in use are experiencing more maintenance along with increasing fuel costs.

The public in general would be satisfied if they felt the county and the ambulance companies have a good contract, Lorenson said. The government doesn’t have the investment, the equipment or the personnel, but the tradeoff is that control of service transitions to private ownership.

“If control is the big feature you want, then you have your own (service),” Lorenson said. “But understand if you have your own, that includes the costs and labor.”

Sirilla said he would like to see the millage pass in order to provide service as the county continues to work on the long-term solution. Bonovetz said the ambulance millage falls in with the “emotional” millages and that voters should realize the number of deaths is starting to exceed the number of births annually in the Upper Peninsula.

The demographics also work against the county, Lorenson said. Not only regarding the volunteers responders but in terms of service reimbursements.

“We have such a greater percentage of seniors who are not on commercial insurance anymore,” Lorenson said. “The reimbursements are getting to that lower percentage.”

The city of Wakefield and other communities have met with Beacon on the possibility of basing an ambulance in the city with on-call staff and support in place for better response times to the more rural areas, he said. The city, although not formally, is exploring the option of establishing its own ambulance service, he said.

Other municipalities in the county are training volunteer firefighters and public safety staff to be emergency medical technicians, Lorenson said. These local governments are saying the effort is to provide care at the scene until ambulatory units arrive, he said.

“Some people are reading into that that those folks want to start their own (ambulance service),” Lorenson said. “Right now, I am taking people at their word that they’re doing that as supplemental.”

The committee discussed the trends in rural ambulance to include the use of volunteer responders in remote areas where companies have not found it feasible to provide a base for an ambulance and staff.

“The volunteers, even for basic coverage, I think is where we’re going to be heading, because I think it’s too costly for us and the millages are just too uncertain,” Bonovetz said.

The millage may get passed this time, but then the county is looking at trying to get it passed again in two years, Bonovetz said. In the meantime, the costs will continue escalating for the private companies and federal reimbursements may not keep up, he said.