Ready to Serve
Things are pretty quiet these days at the Cranberry Township EMS station, and that's got Ted Fessides worried.
“While the call volume is definitely down, the calls that we are seeing are definitely more severe in acuity than they were pre-COVID,” said Fessides, Cranberry EMS chief. “People are waiting longer before calling 911 or going to the hospital.”
While the ambulance service is seeing fewer calls for heart attacks and strokes, Fessides believes it's because people are less willing to go to the hospital — not because there are fewer medical emergencies.
“It's not like they can just stop or disappear out of thin air,” he said. “But now the guy who would have called immediately about his chest pain, now he's waiting until it becomes unbearable and he's done irreversible damage to his heart.”
He added that, because the community's health is paramount to him, people should still put their own health first, rather than worry about placing a burden on health care systems.
“People know their own body. You know best when something's wrong. If something's wrong, don't wait to seek medical treatment. You're not overburdening the ER or EMS,” he said. “When you're sick, you know you're sick. Don't wait on it.”
Dwindling financesThe COVID-19 pandemic has brought good news and bad news for the eight EMS services in Butler County.The good news is a drop in calls for ambulances has meant the services haven't gone through their supplies of personal protection equipment at a fast rate.The bad news is a drop in calls means a drop in revenues for the agencies which aren't tax funded.That's the financial pinch that Fessides finds Cranberry EMS in these days.Fessides runs an agency of 38 staff members, including 17 paramedics and emergency medical technicians in four ambulances and a squad vehicle.The agency deploys three crews during the days and two crews overnight Monday through Friday and two daylight and two nighttime crews on the weekends.But day or night, the ambulances aren't running as much this spring.“We averaged 4,000 calls a year before the COVID-19 pandemic,” Fessides said.“It's severely affected operations. It's the one scenario I didn't plan for.”In March, ambulance calls were down 106 from March 2019. The first two weeks in April showed 56 fewer calls from the same period last year. Calls in Cranberry have gone from an average of 10 calls a day to three or four.This is a problem, according to Fessides, because EMS agencies depend on insurance reimbursements, donations, subscriptions and money from outreach programs such as CPR classes and child seat checks for funding.“Revenues are down $63,000 in March and $33,000 for the first two weeks in April,” he said. “Because of social distancing, there are no CPR classes and child seat checks. We're getting squeezed from both ends.”He said statewide there has been a 25 percent drop in ambulance calls — a drop that is reflected nationwide.“The reasons are a lot more people are staying home. There's less accidents,” he said. “People still have strokes and heart attacks. I don't know where those people are.”It takes 60 to 90 days for an ambulance service to receive payment for its services.“Right now, we are using money from January and February calls,” he said.Agencies will certainly feel financial strain in May, he said.“We were fortunate to receive a Payroll Protection Loan that will see us through until June 12,” Fessides said. “If we hadn't gotten that, we were looking at layoffs and cutting operations to skeleton crews.”And there's the ever-present threat of exposure to novel coronavirus 2019.“We implemented COVID-19 protocols a month ago,” Fessides said. “The patient wears a facemask, the EMT wears a facemask.”Once the EMTs have assessed the situation and it's decided the presence of the virus is possible, the EMTs put on protective suits, face shields and face masks and change their gloves.“PPE supplies are holding up good,” Fessides said. “We were prepared for this. We stocked up for the Ebola epidemic.”Also because of fewer calls and canceled outreach programs, “the station's the cleanest it's been in years,” he said.Crews are using a mister, UV lights and a garden sprayer to sanitize the station and equipment.
Working togetherFessides is also participating in weekly telephone conferences with county officials and other EMS agencies at 11 a.m. Tuesdays.“The purpose of these meetings is for us to assess the county response to the coronavirus,” said Robert McLafferty, Butler County 911 coordinator, who began teleconferences March 17.There's information sharing as well as sharing supplies with those agencies that need them. “It allows the county to understand what they need,” said Steve Bicehouse, Butler County Emergency Services director.For example, a purchase of hand sanitizer has provided every police and fire department and EMS agency with a gallon of it.“From a county perspective, we want to provide them with any measure we can to protect them,” McLafferty said.Bicehouse said the county had a PPE stockpile including 10,000 masks and a couple of thousand gowns that it has distributed to agencies as well as a pallet of bleach donated by the James Austin Co. of Mars.The 911 center uses a series of screening questions to determine if a patient may have the COVID-19 virus and relays that information to ambulance crews.“I think that for the public, the county and the EMS first-responders are well prepared and taking all steps that they can to protect the public,” McLafferty said.But the COVID-19 pandemic is going to force the EMS agencies and officials to take a hard look at the future survival of the service.“I think after the emergency is over, we will have to look at how the EMS system is funded,” Fessides said. “If it is an essential service, it needs to be funded like the police and fire departments. The present system doesn't work these days.”
