By Benjamin Joe
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal
NIAGARA COUNTY, N.Y. — The Niagara County Legislature is expected to adopt measures next week to get a county-run supplemental ambulance service up and running.
The measures are authorizations recommended by the legislature’s Community Safety and Security committee, member legislator Rick Abbott told the Union-Sun & Journal on Wednesday.
One measure authorizes the leasing of one ambulance on a month-to-month basis and the other directs the county to apply for a Certificate of Need and gather the necessary supplies.
“We’re leasing one ambulance from Tri-Community in Cambria (and) we have a used one that’s sitting at the Public Safety building,” legislator Shawn Foti, also a member of the Fire Advisory Board, said.
According to Foti, the entire plan will not be completed for approximately 90 days. When Mercy EMS’s contract with the county expires at the end of October, there will be a gap of county supplementing emergency service, he said.
Ultimately the county EMS fleet will consist of four ambulances. Four vehicles were ordered in June 2022, immediately after the legislature approved staffing two ambulances with county employees. The wait time for the new ambulances is about 1-1/2 years, so those won’t be in service until February 2024, according to Abbott.
The ambulances, which cost about $200,000 each, were purchased with American Rescue Plan Act funds allocated to the county.
“They’ll be filled by county employees, but we don’t know how many,” Abbott said.
“This is all new (for the county),” Abbott added. “When you look at hiring an ambulance service, we have to hire a medical director, we have to get the ambulances certified, we have to get their CONs (Certificates of Need), we have to hire personnel. There’s layers and layers of things you have to get through.”
Currently the legislature is waiting on a final report from the Rochester-based Center for Governmental Research, which specializes in ambulance service consulting, to recommend the best way to cover EMS needs countywide in the future, without ARPA funding. That report is expected by the end of this month, Abbott said.
Abbott emphasized that the county is not aiming to become a primary provider of ambulance service; its intent is to serve as a backup for volunteer fire and EMS companies.
“We will only supplement with the service that’s already there,” he said.
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