By Steve Vied
Messenger-Inquirer
OWENSBORO, Ky. — Owensboro Mayor Ron Payne said Tuesday he would “a little more comfortable” knowing that if need be, the Owensboro Fire Department could provide back-up ambulance service to private sector provider Yellow Ambulance.
“I’m going to feel a little more comfortable if our fire department is there to step in if it has to,” Payne said at the conclusion of Tuesday’s regular City Commission meeting at City Hall. “You never know where the private sector is going. It is an essential service.”
Payne said the city must do everything it can to prepare the OFD for such a possibility.
“A lot of communities put it with the fire department,” he said. “I want to look at it. It is something we need to be seriously considering as a community. ... I’m very open to it.”
For the first time, the door now appears to be opening to allow the city fire department as well as the Daviess County Fire Department to provide ambulance service in back-up roles. Under the current ambulance contract between the city, county and Yellow Ambulance Co., only Yellow can transport a patient to a hospital.
But a key revision to a proposed new contract extension, already approved by Yellow Ambulance, allows both the city and county fire departments to add transport services if they choose to as a backup to Yellow when the private company is too busy to answer all calls immediately.
On Tuesday, the City Commission held first reading of an ordinance containing the new agreement, without objections and very few questions for Fire Chief Steve Mitchell, who briefly reviewed the new contract language for the elected officials.
Earlier, Mitchell said it would take the city fire department up to two years to add ambulance service because it would take almost that long to train at least six paramedics to staff ambulances.
At least one fact has emerged that seems to suggest that OFD ambulances are needed: Last year, on 26 occasions, a Daviess County Fire Department emergency medical vehicle made a run into Owensboro to provide advanced life support to a patient until a Yellow Ambulance showed up.
The DCFD has paramedics assigned to all of its shifts and could, at least in theory, move into back-up ambulance service quickly if so inclined.
All city firefighters are EMTs and able to provide basic life support, Mitchell said. But EMTs can’t administer drugs, while paramedics can, he said.
Daviess Fiscal Court will be briefed on the contract recommendation during its Jan. 22 meeting. If the contract passes city and county muster, it will be signed in February, Mitchell said.
In other business Tuesday, the commission heard the Owensboro Human Relations Commission’s annual report from Sylvia Coleman, the agency’s executive director. Also, Commissioner Jeff Sanford, the No. 1 vote-getter in the November City Commission election, was unanimously elected mayor pro tem.
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©2015 the Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, Ky.)