County to Vote on Expanded EMS Thursday Night
Topic of heated debate marred by politics, misinformation
By Brandi Makuski
After more than a year of discussion, debate and studies, Portage Co. on Thursday will vote on a proposal that adds an additional ambulance service in the Village of Plover.
The expansion itself has been supported by officials from multiple municipalities, but the rub is in the details. The proposal, made by Plover in August, calls for the 24/7 ambulance service to be staffed using a one-paramedic, one-EMT system (known as 1-1).
While it’s an improvement from the enhanced EMT system used in Amherst, it’s a different from the two-paramedic system — referred to as the “Gold Standard” — previously agreed to by both Portage Co. and the City of Stevens Point when it was created in 1998, and some believe the 1-1 proposal translates into a lower level of service.
“When we created the system, both the city and county agreed they wanted the Gold Standard of EMS, or pre-hospital care, for all the citizens of Portage County, using a two-paramedic system,” said Joe Gemza, Assistant EMS Chief at the Stevens Point Fire Department. “It wasn’t just for the metro area, it was so the entire county had the same level of care.”
Gemza said the standard requires paramedics to be nationally registered and to remain current on the latest medical trends and training. He and others in city government feel the 1-1 system fractures an already-existing standard of care.
Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza has repeatedly referred to the proposal as a “reduction in service for the entire county,” something several members of the City Council have echoed in public statements on the issue.
“We have a third of the County Board representing city districts,” Wiza said at the Nov. 7 Stevens Point Police and Fire Commission meeting. “There is no way this is good for any part of the city. Maybe if you live outside the city, you could justify a less than two percent improved response time, but there is nothing good for about the city with this.”
“I think this is ridiculous — we have a Gold Standard, two-paramedic system that I pay taxes for in the City of Stevens Point,” Ald. Mary Kneebone said at a Nov. 2 Portage Co. County Public Safety Committee meeting. “And now you’re going to raise my property taxes to give me less service? This is B.S.”
But Dan Dobratz, chairman of the EMS Oversight Committee, said it’s not a reduction in service: it’s an additional paramedic, EMT and ambulance on the road.
“I think it’s important to remember this is in addition to what’s already being offered for EMS services in the county,” Dobratz said.
Dobratz was among several County Board Supervisors who spoke on the issue before approving the 2018 budget for the additional ambulance service on Nov. 1. Most who spoke that night said they found no fault with the 1-1 expansion but still had a lot of questions — and some admitted they hadn’t followed the yearlong discussion, asking for 11th hour specifics on the $630,000 proposal before approving the measure 20-4.
Part of the problem, Gemza said, is the flow of information. Conversations have occurred on nearly a dozen different city, village and county committees but with varying consistency — and sometimes, contradictory or incomplete information.
At the Nov. 1 meeting, EMS Director Joe Brandt told the County Board the system started out in Stevens Point as a 1-1, noting it would similarly be a reasonable starting point for Plover. But according to the Stevens Point Fire Dept., where the county’s EMS hub is located, that’s not true: the system launched as a two-paramedic service on Christmas Eve of 1998. Gemza was one of the 15 paramedics who helped create the system, and today, every firefighter in SPFD is also a nationally-registered paramedic.
“We did start out as a two-paramedic system: we did not start out as a 1-1, which was stated during the meeting,” Gemza said.
Another inaccuracy: at the Nov. 1 meeting, Supervisor Al Haga said he was confused by all of the debate, saying the proposal for Plover was a no-brainer because it was the same used in Amherst.
“What I’m hearing is we should not have an EMT and paramedic for Plover, yet we made it very clear we have that same situation in Amherst,” Haga said. “Yet for some reason, that’s still OK. If it’s good for one, it’s good for both.”
While Amherst has applied for the 1-1 license through the state, it is currently an EMT system, Gemza said, and different from the 1-1 proposed in Plover.
According to Brandt, Amherst and Plover have tentative approval from the state to operate 1-1 systems, but must become two-paramedic systems by 2021.
Consistency is key for the success of the entire EMS system, according to Fire Chief Bob Finn, who added he’s got concerns as to whether city paramedics can even work with the new Plover system under current state licensing laws.
“We’re still looking into it, whether or not we’ll be able to work with them,” Finn said.
Like most of the county, the Village of Plover is already served by the Portage Co. EMS System, and even has an ambulance and two paramedics from Stevens Point housed at its fire station for 40 hours a week. The expansion would bring the village a dedicated ambulance service of its own.
Officials in Plover say regardless of the misinformation, it’s a good move for the entire county.
“We’re better serving 17,000-plus residents,” said Plover Village President Tom Davies, adding the additional ambulance would also primarily serve the Town of Plover, Whiting and parts of Buena Vista, but like all other Portage Co. ambulances it could be deployed anywhere in the county.
“For some reason this enhanced system has become very political and that should be the absolute least consideration,” Davies added. “This is to save lives in the county.”
Under the proposal, the new service in Plover will utilize the 1-1 system for a period of 18 months, but must meet the two-paramedic standard by 2021. The ambulance will serve all of Portage Co., but its primary area of service includes the village and Town of Plover, Whiting and parts of Buena Vista.
Village representatives will also be added to the county’s EMS technical team, similar to Amherst and Stevens Point, beginning in January 2018.
EMS crews responded to 1,034 calls in 2015, according to county records — about one-quarter of the total calls for all of Portage Co. in the same time frame.
Plover Administrator Dan Mahoney said housing a permanent ambulance crew in Plover would not benefit only the village, which already works jointly with emergency crews from Stevens Point and other surrounding areas on a regular basis.
“By adding an additional ambulance to the system, this would improve the service to the residents of the whole county,” he said.
Plover Fire Chief Mark Deaver said the village will continue to use its existing footprint of the Plover Fire Dept., but will remodel to incorporate the new ambulance and staff. If approved by the County Board on Nov. 9, Deaver said, the village will begin the process of hiring new staff, and should be fully operational by March 2018.
The Plover Area comprises about 17,000 of the county’s 72,000 residents, Deaver said, and call times would improve by as much as four minutes if an ambulance would be housed permanently at the village’s fire department.
“Every minute counts when you’re waiting for EMS care and waiting to get to the hospital,” Deaver told the EMS Oversight Committee in July.
Deaver said an additional ambulance would also be able to provide additional coverage for “large traffic accidents, natural disasters and multiple calls happening at the same time.”
The final vote will occur at the Nov. 9 County Board meeting, held in the County-City Building at 5 PM. The public is welcome to attend. Click here for the meeting agenda.