Council reconsiders ambulance staffing requirements

Brandon’s emergency ambulance service isn’t going anywhere.

But it was in jeopardy for a few days last week following the council’s Jan. 20 action to amend Ordinance 598. The amended change essentially required the city’s 911 provider, MED-Star, in this case, to have a paramedic on board 95 percent of their runs.

The current ordinance required both a paramedic and EMT when patient care and transport are occurring. The amended ordinance also requires that same staff, but gives leeway to 90 percent of runs the ambulance service makes.

MED-Star has largely met those requirements since being named the city’s 911 provider 13 years ago. Owner Jay Masur said there have been three occasions in 13 years that a paramedic was not on the initial run, but did arrive on scene. The last four months, MED-Star has had a paramedic on emergency runs 100 percent of the time.

Masur said his service averages 300 calls per year, with about 210 of those calls needing to be transferred.

“Why would you want to change something that’s working?” he asks.

Out of the Jan. 15 work session between the council and Masur, 90 percent staffing requirement was the agreed upon figure. The 5-1 council vote on Jan. 20, however, upped the requirement to 95 percent.

Alderwoman Dana Clark suggested the 5 percent increase, saying she couldn’t get behind the 90 percent figure, suggesting a 95 percent compromise.

Alderman Dave Kull cast the lone nay vote, noting that 90 percent “is a fairly standard benchmark in the EMS industry.” 

The 5 percent increase resulted in a Jan. 23 special meeting, where the council reversed their action, voting 5-1 to lower the staffing requirement to 90 percent. Clark cast the dissenting vote.

Kull said he met with Masur following the council’s Jan. 20 action, saying he was disappointed to learn the 95 percent staffing requirement was implemented in the ordinance’s second reading.

“He said he was seriously considering giving his 90-day notice to discontinue service to Brandon,” Kull said.

Kull, who retired after 10 years as Brandon’s chief of police, said he’d witnessed Masur’s service in action. “There were multiple ambulances and they responded in a timely fashion to a single call, and that’s fairly remarkable in a city of 10,000,” he said. “Realistically, someday we will probably find ourselves without a MED-Star-type entity located in our community. Businesses of this nature are bought out or the owners retire and close down shop. When that occurs, I do believe that we will be settling for a lot less.”

The city currently pays MED-Star a $49,999 annual stand-by fee.

Alderwoman Vickie David said the city needs to have a good back-up plan in place for its citizens. Paramedics Plus, Kull said, is Brandon’s EMS back-up plan.

“After that, we’d have to take a look at something new,” he said, adding that costs would most likely skyrocket because EMS in Brandon “doesn’t cash flow.”

The city’s contract with MED-Star requires the EMS provider to staff one ambulance, 24/7, 365 days per year. Masur said his company has done that – and more. There have been occasions, he said, where more than one ambulance is out responding to a call when a second call comes in. Masur said it’s not good business practice to have a paramedic sitting idle, as it is a cost his for-profit businesses have had to absorb.

“I’ve gone way above anything that I’m required to do,” he said.

At the same time the city was amending its ambulance ordinance, Minnehaha County has lowered its standards, which Masur views as the lowest required in the country.

“They (city) wants me to be higher than any other ambulance service in the country. I want to be there too, and I feel like I am,” he said. “But I can be put in a spot to where I can’t meet that every single day of the week. I am here to follow the law and if they make that law, I can’t follow it. I am here to serve the people, which I’ve been doing my whole life, and that’s why I fought so hard to get in here is to serve the people.”