Minn. Fire Dept. Creates Patient Transport Service

July 27--Patients and newly certified EMTs will benefit from a new Saint Paul Fire Department program.

The Basic Life Support Transport Service will bring discharged hospital patients to other care facilities or back to their home as well as provide career training for area youth.

"This unique program provides job training and education to area youth, provides additional operating funds, and offers a superior service to medical patients who live in and around Saint Paul," said Saint Paul Fire Chief Tim Butler in a press release.

The program is staffed by recently graduated emergency medical technicians who completed one of the five Emergency Medical Services academies through the fire department. The academies partnered the fire department with organizations like Youth Job Corps of the Parks and Recreation Department, Inver Hills Community College and the Saint Paul Department of Human Rights & Equal Economic Opportunity.

According to St. Paul Fire Marshal Steve Zaccard, of the roughly 75 academy graduates, 10 have been hired to work for the BLS service. Before, the training academies didn't have a "career ladder" from graduation to becoming a paramedic.

In its two weeks of operation, the transport service has done three to four transports a day from Regions Hospital. The partnership fills a void after Regions' previous provider stopped that service, Zaccard said.

The van-style ambulance donated by Inver Hills Community College runs Monday through Friday

8 a.m. to midnight and is covered by the patients' health insurance. The scheduled transport service will operate out of Freedom House Station 51 at 296 W. 7th St.

Operational costs are paid from transport service fees, donations and Youth Job Corps grants. The fees will also be used to fund future EMS academies.

Copyright 2012 - Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.