Fee-based ambulance service may be near

Fee-based ambulance service may be near

Stan Fisher , Register Correspondent

07/18/2003

CLINTON — Major changes may be in store for two free and important town services — the 50-year-old ambulance service of the Clinton Volunteer Fire Department and the three-decade-old Medical Outpatient Transportation Services.

The ambulance service, in another year, likely will no longer be provided free of charge, while MOTS could be operated by another provider, still without any cost to its users.

Fire Chief Scott Andrews said the department reluctantly is moving to a fee-based service to contend with the lack of personnel available to answer ambulance calls during the day, and to offset the new charges the Middlesex Paramedic Service plans to institute in 2004.

Of the 1,400 calls for service to which the fire department responded last year, about 1,100 — nearly 80 percent — were ambulance calls and the remainder for fires, motor vehicle accidents and other difficulties, Andrews said.

While the fire department is amply staffed with volunteers at night, it has very few people available to contend with that workload during the day, particularly with the retirement of veteran emergency medical technician Marian Sparks, he explained.

A fee-based ambulance service would allow the department to pay medical personnel to be on duty in fire headquarters to respond to daytime calls, Andrews explained.

And the revenue also would offset the cost the town will experience in 2004 when the Middlesex Paramedic Service institutes a per capita charge to the towns it serves, as well as a charge for each call.

Fire officials, who have been advising selectmen about their consideration of the fee plan, hope to have a final recommendation next year, Andrews said.

Meanwhile, selectmen are considering the discontinuance of the town-operated MOTS program, opting instead to pay the Connecticut River Estuary Regional Planning Agency to operate it.

That switch would come only if there is no change in the present, personalized level of service provided by the town and it would remain free of charge to users, Selectwoman Dolly Mezzetti said.

The town is looking into the CRERPA service, already provided in neighboring communities, for its potential of reducing the current expense of the town program.

Salaries alone for the five to six part-time drivers used by the town MOTS service are $13,000, with additional expense in maintenance, insurance, and fuel, she said.

The town currently pays $23,000 in membership dues to CRERPA, for which it receives a variety of consulting services, and an additional $7,500 for the CRERPA transit service.

While Mezzetti said CRERPA has not yet provided a cost estimate for outpatient transportation in Clinton, neighboring towns pay from $3,000 to $5,500 for the service.