The town wants to improve response time to about three minutes — one minute quicker than health experts say a heart attack victim needs to start getting treatment for the best chance of survival.
To do that, Mayor Joseph Maturo is proposing the town create its own team of paramedics instead of relying on the private ambulance company American Medical Response for that service. Before that can happen, the town needs a license from the state Department of Public Health's office of emergency services.
The town does currently have six emergency medical technicians who are dispatched by the East Haven Fire Department from three stations around town and do have a three-minute response time, Sandford said. But they can't always help because they are not licensed to provide certain treatment.
For example, EMTs who arrive at a medical call for a person having a heart attack can't give certain medications that can stop immediate damage to the heart. Also, they have to use the "automatic" mode on the defibrillators the town recently bought instead of overriding the controls and deciding the level of shock to give a patient.
"You can see what a great thing this is going to be; we're going to save lives without a doubt," Sandford said.
Right now, when a resident needs paramedic-level care, the department calls AMR, which has offices on Middletown Avenue in North Haven and on Route 80 in New Haven.
They send the closest ambulance, but Sandford said an AMR ambulance with a paramedic is not always available.
"We do the best we can at the level we're at," Sandford said. "But being at paramedic level is the best we can be."
During 2,000 of the 3,300 medical calls East Haven EMTs responded to last year, it took between eight and 12 minutes for AMR to respond with paramedic help.
Five of the town's firefighters already are trained in providing paramedic-level care. But they can't administer certain levels of care, like giving medication on-scene, using certain heart defibrillators and running intravenous lines, as the town does not have a license to practice paramedic level care.
The town is now applying for that license, and by April 2003, authorities hope that at least one paramedic will be on duty 24 hours a day.
"It's the optimal level of service," Mayor Joseph Maturo said, noting that in lean economic times, "we have had to skimp on everything else, but we are now in a position to do something for the whole community."
In addition to a license, the department would need one more person trained as a paramedic, making the total six, to cover each shift and holidays.
Running the program would cost $10,000 to $14,000 per year. Training another paramedic would cost about $30,000.
Ultimately, the department would like to have eight paramedics.
The South Central Connecticut Emergency Services Commission also must approve the license and will hold a public hearing to hear comments on the plan within six months.
But the town can't apply for the license until it has another paramedic. Their current list of firefighters available for hire includes no paramedics, Sandford said.
So, the department must petition the Emergency Services Commission for permission to search for only paramedic-trained firefighters instead of following the rule of hiring from the top of a regional list of firefighters waiting to be hired.
The town also has to negotiate with the firefighters' union, as the paramedics — like the firefighters who are EMT trained — must be compensated for their extra duty.Joe McGurk can be reached at jmcgurk@nhregister.com , or 789-5710. |
