On Thursday, November 5th, the FSA (fire service area) board sponsored a meeting to discuss local emergency services at the TFS Community Hall. The meeting was attended by members of the TFS Volunteer Fire Department (a separate entity), members of the Eureka ambulance board, EMT volunteers, a member of the dispatch board, and someone from the Alert (think helicopter ambulence) service. About half of the general public present seemed to be knitters from the Thursday group meeting at the pub.
The FSA board stated that they were hosting the meeting to further the conversation, following a meeting this spring that provided information on alert (the helicopter service). The goal was a community brainstorming meeting.
Introductions were slow, despite attendance being only around 25 people. There were lots of stories of slow response time, as well as the acknowledgement that the ambulance is in very high demand. Generally, slow response time is an accepted risk of being rural, but the consensus was that four hours (the turn around time for the ambulance if it has to transport) is worse than anyone would like.
Mark Spehar brought up the potential of a fire based emergency medical service. While there wasn’t a reason given for the FSA board to be the ones hosting, the potential might be why finding a solution for ambulance response time was on the mind of the FSA board.
In response, the TFS volunteer fire department clarified that with between 12-20 volunteers, it can’t support ambulance services (while the Eureka ambulance crew is happy to have fire fighters as drivers, the fire department here is sufficiently short of people that TFS isn’t currently fielding any ambulance drivers).
The Eureka ambulance board members provided some additional details on how shy they are on volunteers. New trainees often end up leaving the area for financial reasons, and those remaining are aging out. They also indicated that while they were able to place an ambulance out in west Kootenai, they haven’t been able to do so here due to lack of a place to store it and lack of local volunteers in the TFS Area to staff it.
In general, the major problems facing the ambulance service are:
- Massive service area (500 square miles)
- Few EMTs
- High expenses and low funding (EMS receives a very small amount of tax money, in comparison to our schools or library)
People at the meeting brought up ideas
- Eureka ambulance stored in TFS Area, like the one in West Kootenai
- Fire Service District providing EMS services (we don’t have a district currently)
- First Aid/Emergency classes for general public
- Training on how to set up landing zones for alert med-evac helicopters
- Local first aid station with supplies as a place to meet the ambulance
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