The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
City sees boost in need for mutual aid transport
Fire chiefs closely monitoring situation
MIDDLETOWN — The city is experiencing an increase in requests for medical services from neighboring towns, which a local EMS transport agency official attributes to call volume, requests for multiple ambulances, and travel to emergency facilities outside of town.
Middletown has contracted with Hunters Ambulance , at 594 Washington St., for some time, according to Middletown Fire Department Chief/EMS Director Robert Kronenberger. Those services are in the process of being transferred to Hartford Healthcare, according to Hunters Chief Operating Officer David Lowell.
There are three fire companies in Middletown: the main station, with locations on Main Street and Cross Street; Westfield Volunteer Fire on East Street in the north part of the city; and South Fire District on Randolph Road. Each is responsible for various sections of the city.
In the last two weeks, Kronenberger said, his company needed mutual aid six times from Cromwell and Durham, something he hasn’t seen happen in a very long time.
“This is something we really have to monitor,” he said. “I’m going to be watching this closely.”
The need for multiple ambulances at accident scenes, for example, as well as occasions when patients are taken to hospitals outside of town are driving the rise in the need for assistance for neighboring towns, Lowell said.
Recently, within a span of 40 minutes, Hunters received seven 911 requests for emergency ambulance response in Middletown, Lowell said. Four were made within a four-minute span, and six were fulfilled by his units. “The sixth one was sent to Cromwell EMS as a mutual aid partner,” Lowell said. “They responded and were subsequently canceled en route.”
The pandemic is not one of the contributing factors to the issue, he said.
Middletown is in the process of trying to secure a primary service agreement so it can decide which agencies to work with, Kronenberger said. “The city, at this point, does not want to get into ambulance transport, but we want a little bit more control over who supplies service to the city,” he said.
Kronenberger has not seen delays in ambulance response times in Middletown, he said.
There is a tiered system of duties set up in Middletown, Kronenberger said.
“[Middlesex] Hospital supplies our paramedic service, the fire department supplies the EMT service, and Hunters provides the transport,” he said.
“When you call 911, the dispatch will go through a series of questions for you. How you respond to those questions will dictate what level of response you get,” Kronenberger said. That could mean just an ambulance; an ambulance along with the fire department; or , fire crews and paramedic, “depending on the severity of the incident,” he said.
The query process, known as emergency medical dispatch, is a nationwide standard that most communications centers use, Kronenberger said.
At South Fire, as with fire services across Connecticut and the nation, the volume of coronavirus calls has caused a strain, Chief Michael Howley said. “As our numbers increase, and people get sick, these services are getting stretched,” he said. “We understand it, and the need to prepare for it.”
Hospitals around the state are diverting emergency vehicles at various times depending on the influx of people positive for the coronavirus, Howley said. “It happens once in a while. With COVID, it’s now showing up more and more. It’s not just here. It’s all over the place.”
City leaders recently began discussing the issue, Howley said. He and other fire officials anticipated a bump in the need for ambulance services after the first of the year — following the holidays, Howley said, and “now it’s coming to its peak.”
Once COVID cases decline and the rate of vaccine distribution increases, the transportation situation should ease, Howley said. “It’s a citywide conversation. We need to be aware.”