The growing demand on emergency medical services in Campbell County has strained the partial paid, partial volunteer system, leading the county’s Board of Supervisors to approve the hiring of six additional personnel.
The supervisors unanimously approved adding the six additional emergency responders as the county’s Emergency Medical Services Advisory Committee deems appropriate and contingent on the ability to self fund the additional employees.
The staffing issue came to a head in recent weeks when a call went unanswered for about 40 minutes while the paid emergency crew was on another call and volunteers were unable to respond, said Jason Stroud, deputy director of the county’s Emergency Medical Services.
Stroud said emergency responders answered some 8,000 calls last year. Most of them are handled swiftly, he said. However, the county’s goal is a 15-minute response time goal for at least 90 percent of the calls. Emergency responders are meeting that goal only about 50 percent of the time.
Stroud said the problem is two-fold. High demand is being placed on emergency responders as people use the system as a primary care provider, like calling to be transported for a sprained ankle or broken toe. That, coupled with an increased demand on volunteers’ time between work and family obligations, has left fewer people to answer the call.
The county has nine full-time career emergency responders and several part-time. They staff one ambulance 24 hours a day, seven days a week in Rainbow Forest, one from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday that rotates throughout the county, and one advanced life support provider, who operates out of a sport utility vehicle from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“While many improvements have been made over the last several years, we continue to experience lengthy response times throughout the county,” Stroud wrote in his report to the board. “Recently there have been several response delays and/or no responses by volunteer rescue squads while the career staffed units were on other calls for service.”
The additional staff will be used to staff an advanced life support/EMS supervisor response vehicle and an additional ambulance at the Brookneal Rescue Squad 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the report said.
In addition, the advisory committee is looking at some short-term changes in schedules, dispatching protocols and implementing a rigorous recruitment and retention program to bolster volunteers in the county.
The emergency services committee will meet again with the squad captains on June 25 to make a final decision on how to close the gaps in emergency coverage.
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