Carson City Supervisors approve new ambulance for basic life services
Submitted by Brett Fisher on Tue, 07/11/2017 - 7:09pm
A new ambulance that would provide Basic Life Services to residents has been approved by the Carson City Board of Supervisors at its July 6 meeting, board minutes said.
The emergency vehicle will be funded from the city's equipment account, according to the proposed motion, for an amount not to exceed $92,436.
Its purchase is an integral part of the Carson City Fire Department's (CCFD) new Basic Life Services program aimed at reducing the demands on existing Advanced Life Support (ALS) units, the proposal said.
"The purchase of this Basic Life Service (BLS) ambulance and the new BLS service will increase the ability of the fire department to better service the citizens of Carson City," said a staff report prepared by Purchasing and Contracts Administrator Laura Rader of the Carson City Finance Department and Fleet Services Supervisor Zach Good of the Carson City Department of Public Works.
Essential ambulance service in Carson City currently combines both BLS and ALS calls, meaning increased demands placed on paramedics to respond to every 9-1-1 service call.
According to the proposal prepared by Rader and Good, emergency calls to the CCFD have more than doubled since 1999 — from 4,795 to 10,500 calls for service in 2016. Nine out of 10 of those calls were for emergency medical services, the report said.
Over the same time period, Rader and Good note, the number of fire engines and ambulances has not grown. At its current pace for this year — at an average of 27.6 calls per day — CCFD will run over 11,000 calls this year.
"This increase in calls without an accompanying increase in response resources has placed a greater importance on current mutual aid agreements with neighboring counties," Rader and Good said in their report. "In some instances, all resources are completely depleted, emergency calls are prioritized, and callers for emergency medical services are asked to wait."
The proposal states that CCFD requests mutual aid resources from neighboring agencies more than 300 times per year, raising concerns about a lack of local resources to handle the workload.
Basic Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) will staff the new BLS ambulance service, the report said, which will respond to calls not requiring the higher level of care that ALS paramedics provide in life-threatening situations.
The service will operate on a 40-hour per week schedule, the report said, effectively diverting less severe medical calls away from ALS units.
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