Pa. Council Debates Switching Medics With EMTs

Nov. 29--Members of Allentown City Council on Monday criticized the plan to reorganize Allentown's emergency medical service, with one councilman introducing a budget amendment that would kill the proposal to add emergency medical technicians to the all-paramedic staff.

The city wants to add an ambulance staffed with two EMTs to the roster 24 hours a day in order to boost manpower and improve response times. It would be a change from the city's traditional method of relying solely on more highly trained paramedics in the event of medical emergencies.

With 1,500 hours of training, paramedics can perform advanced life-saving techniques, such as administering intravenous medicine. With 150 to 160 hours of training, EMTs perform basic life-saving techniques.

Under the plan, the city would add eight EMTs and move four of the 27 paramedics to positions as shift supervisors, EMS bureau manager David Van Allen said. The city would staff ambulances with crews of all paramedics or all EMTs, he said.

Councilman Michael D'Amore said he is concerned that doing so would compromise emergency care in Allentown.

"I am concerned about diluting the professional talent pool in EMS," D'Amore said. "I don't want to speak ill of EMTs, but paramedics can do things that EMTs cannot. Those are the kinds of things, when you're in an ambulance, when you're on your way to the hospital ... it's good to have that paramedic and not an EMT."

Van Allen maintained that the change in the system would improve it and bring the city in line with the vast majority of other dual-EMS systems around the country.

"It augments our service and advances the care we can provide," he said, adding that the city is understaffed at night.

Councilman Peter Schweyer said making it a two-tiered system inherently adds some risk.

"When a citizen calls 911 and asks for a police officer, they get a cop. When they ask for a firefighter, they get a firefighter," Schweyer said. "This multilevel service scares me a little. We are asking overworked and under-pressure [communications] center employees to make another judgment call."

Schweyer said it's safer to err on the side of having "more service," especially when adding a few EMTs now could snowball in later years under different leadership.

Council members also expressed concern moving EMS out of the general fund and into an enterprise fund makes a statement that public service has to make a profit.

"Why should we expect EMS to break even or turn a profit?" D'Amore asked, saying that the city does not expect the same of police or fire.

An enterprise fund is treated as a self-sufficient entity in the city budget. It is expected to have its revenues support its expenses. But unlike other enterprise funds, such as sewer or water, EMS is not designed to be used by the whole city, only by those who require emergency medical care, Schweyer said.

D'Amore's proposed budget amendment would put the EMS budget back into the city's general fund.

D'Amore reiterated that he saw a move to an enterprise fund as a suggestion the city is considering selling off or contracting city EMS, because it would allow private companies to easily track costs and revenues associated with running the city EMS. He cited talks with two emergency medical services, Cetronia and LifeStar Response of New Jersey.

Van Allen said EMS leaders themselves had investigated privatization in the past but decided against it.

Mayor Ed Pawlowsi said last week that the city "does not have and has never had any intention" of privatizing Allentown's emergency medical services.

The full council will vote on the amendment to kill the proposed addition of EMTs at a meeting Wednesday.

Councilmen Michael Schlossberg and Julio Guridy, who also listened to discussions Monday, said they had concerns about the plan but liked other aspects of it.

Councilman Michael Donovan has said he thinks the plan is financially sound.

devon.lash@mcall.com

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