Cape Elizabeth considers change to fire-rescue unit

CAPE ELIZABETH — A sea change in the culture surrounding fire and rescue units across Maine means the tide may finally be going out on Cape Elizabeth’s all-volunteer ambulance service.

“If you look around, there’s nobody who has survived with the system we have for as long as we have,” said Fire Chief Peter Gleeson, during a Town Council workshop Monday. “It’s got to the point where it’s very fragile, to the point where, when a tone goes out, I get very nervous.”

To combat reduced membership, and a resulting spike in response time, Gleeson has asked the town to hire an ALS (Advanced Life Support) certified EMT or paramedic on a per diem basis for up to 10 hours per day, seven days per week. At recommended pay rates ranging from $16.25 to $18.25 per hour, the change is expected to cost taxpayers up to $76,394 per year.

Town Manager Michael McGovern said the change can be implemented Jan. 1 using money in a “rescue special fund.” However, town councilors will need to make it a regular general-fund item, subject to funding via taxation, beginning with the FY 2012 budget.

After mulling over the state of town rescue service at workshop sessions on Sept. 6 and Oct. 3, the council will vote on the plan at its next regular meeting on Oct. 12.

Cape Elizabeth’s rescue service is an all-volunteer operation – perhaps a misnomer as the department’s 30 members do get paid a stipend averaging $11 to $13 per hour while responding to an emergency, and a flat $10 fee for each overnight shift they agree to spend close at hand, in case a call comes in.

However, the time it takes to become an EMT means new members are not joining up as fast as they used to. Meanwhile, changes in the local economy mean fewer people are in town during the day when most calls come in.

“We have 30 members, but sometimes we’re lucky if we get two respond to a call,” said Gleeson, noting that, while Cape began paying volunteers per call five years ago, it still adheres to the “age-old” method of simply hoping enough trained members are in town and available to respond when a cry for help goes out across the airwaves.

Questions about the rescue service were raised in late August by Councilor Caitlin Jordan, who was concerned about the creeping rise in response times.

“We’re seeing more and more [instances] of having to put a second tone out for rescue,” admitted McGovern, in response to Jordan’s inquiry. “That means the dispatcher has been waiting and waiting to hear that someone is en route.”

In 2010, Cape Elizabeth Rescue was called an average of 1.26 times per day, arriving on scene, on average, with 6.21 emergency responders within 11 minutes, 15 seconds.

This year, however, while the average number of calls per day has dropped to 1.21 and the average crew size has shrunk to 4.98, average response time has grown almost two minutes, to 13 minutes, six seconds. More troubling, while rescue workers arrived on scene within 10 minutes at 61.2 percent of all calls last year, that number has dropped to 41.8 percent so far this year.

“I want to underline, no one has died because of this,” said McGovern at the August meeting, prompting Jordan to make a show of knocking on table, for luck.

Councilors asked Gleeson and his crew to come up with a solution. A seven-member committee of rescue personnel met Sept. 15 and determined that the downward trend is unlikely to abate any time soon.

“Volunteerism, in general, has been declining in all public aspects, due to the economy, both parents working, some with multiple jobs, and lack of free time to donate,” read a report issued Sept. 23. “As members move or retire, not all are being replaced.”

In addition to other societal factors, the report blames increasing regulation on scaring away potential new recruits. Certification as basic-level EMT now requires close to 100 hours of class time, while it can take two years to become a paramedic. Meanwhile, increased expectations from hospitals can turn even a routine ambulance run into a two-hour affair – a long time to leave one’s job in the middle of the day.

“Due to the unpredictable nature of emergency calls and volunteer availability, we feel it is prudent to have a plan ready to implement prior to the system failing,” reads the report.

If adopted as proposed, Cape Elizabeth will hire a single paramedic or intermediate-level EMT to stand by at the station from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., weekdays, when 55 percent of all calls occur and other rescue members are more likely to be out of town at their jobs, or otherwise occupied. The contract employee will still depend on a volunteer driver showing up in order to answer any call.

McGovern said in a memo to councilors that the $76,394 price tag to implement the new normal may not be the final figure. Presence of a daytime responder probably means fewer regular members will respond to daytime calls.

“There would likely be a partial offset [but] I hesitate to provide an estimate,” wrote McGovern.

Gleeson also promises that the per diem workers – shifts that will be offered first to department members before help-wanted signs are hung – will earn their keep by performing maintenance duties around the fire station.

“I’m not expecting them to be flat-out for 10 hours, but we have an expectation that they are going to be doing things,” Gleeson said.

Still, Gleeson acknowledged that per diem help is often less easily controlled than actual employees. That, added to the fact that only one per diem person will be on standby, leaving him or her subject to having to wait on scene for an ambulance driver, could led to adapting the program on the fly.

“We have theories of how we want it all to work out,” said Gleeson. “We’ll start with those theories and I’m sure we will have people who will give us reason to modify that.”