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The majority of Easton EMS 911 calls are done by out of town EMTs responding from their homes in Newtown, Trumbull, Monroe, Fairfield … or must rely on mutual aid to staff Easton EMS during the 56 hours of weekly shifts in which Easton EMS is unable to provide coverage and must use out of town resources. This has been the status for over a year.
According to Chief Arnold, Easton EMS has 58 active volunteers.
Approximately 54 of those volunteers live out of town and respond to Easton 911 EMS call from their homes out of town.
Chief Arnold publicly stated EMTs responding from home can take upwards of 30 minute response time.
Easton is a part paid, part volunteer service.
Forty hours per week comes from paid service, and the remaining 128 hours from volunteer service.
Of the 128 volunteer service hours, Chief Arnold states 56 hours are unmanned hours.
The majority of the remaining 72 volunteer hours are done by of out of town EMT responding from their homes in Newtown, Trumbull, Monroe, Fairfield…not from in town and on station.
By statute, EMS station must be centrally located in town. What good is it if the responders are responding from out of town and not from centrally located at the EMS Station?
Easton needs a 24-hour EMT service that responds from the station in the town of Easton.
The administration says it takes time to remedy EMS issues, but never says what those issues are and what they’re actually doing.
It appears a temporary fix should be straight forward.
Require ALL EMTs to respond from the station. If they are not willing to do so, then it is not of much service to our town. Out of town responders are not an acceptable Emergency Service for the town of Easton.
In the interim we need to fund a 24-hour, in town EMT service while we work to figure out a long-term solution.
The town deserves answers on how long it will take, and if's even possible to build an on station volunteer service or if we need to move to an all paid service.
Do we add more paid EMTs to our current service or do we hire AMR or do we merge EMS with Fire (which already has trained EMT on duty 24/7)?
In April the Board of Finance offered Chief Arnold $68,000 dollars to cover unmanned shifts. Chief Arnold declined the funds. He said he was starting up a program with Sacred Heart University EMT club students where they would live on station for free in exchange for covering shifts.
Nine month later the students are living on station, but unable to facilitate EMS calls.
During these nine months, the shifts continued to be unmanned and calls are still done from out of town, while we had 100-year flood on the weekend not covered until the storm was over and a double fatality on Route 58, where it took Easton 46 minutes to get our ambulance on scene. The Responders came from Newtown. Luckily, Monroe EMS responded in 31 minutes and was transporting by the time Easton EMS showed up.
These were not and are not one off practices that mutual aid arrives before Easton EMS. There have been many complaints to the Selectman’s office regarding response issues.
Not acting swiftly on these heath and safety matters is negligent and puts the town and its citizens at risk.
It appears Easton needs to get Fire, Dispatch and EMS in the same room to address these issues.
Does the Police Dispatcher know where the Easton EMT is coming from when they send the call? Would Monroe or Fairfield be closer than a Newtown responder on shift?
Easton needs to figure out how to respond to its EMS call from its centrally located station. Anything less is a disservice to the Town, and a potential liability.
If we have to go to the Board of Finance for a half to a $1 million to remedy this issue for the next six or nine months, then we should do that. This should be a town decision, not Chief Arnold’s or the EMS Commission's decision. We should not have to wait for nine months while the Chief and the Commission to figure it out.
The holidays are upon us and bad weather, drunk driving and distracted driving on the rise means increased call volume, so we need an immediate remedy. We cannot afford to wait another 9 months.
There is a simple, immediate fix.
Change EMS protocol/regulations to require ALL EMT to respond from station, and fund the shifts not covered by volunteers.
If our current volunteers are not willing to respond from station, then why are we considering spending $4 million in renovation for a building they don’t want to respond from?
The paid EMTs respond from station. If the current EMTs are not willing to respond from station now, there's no guarantee they will after we build a $4 million building. This should not be an "if we build it they will come" situation.
The SHU Student program is a band-aid not a solution. How many kids can live on station without oversight? These are kids with no ties to the community, so after Easton spends money on training them to get the experience they need, they will go elsewhere to a paid service or back home.
STOP THE NONSENSE.
GET A 24 hour in town response EMS service immediately. Stop pretending any of this is not a problem, and do the right thing for the citizens that elected the administration and for all those who took an oath to do no harm.
June Logie is a resident of Easton, Connecticut.
