POUGHKEEPSIE – The Public Safety Committee of the Dutchess County Legislature expected a briefing on Thursday from Dana Smith, Dutchess County Commissioner of Emergency Response. Instead, Nearly every one of the 25 legislators were in the chambers along with members of the first responder community to hear Smith talk about the EMS crisis that is spreading rapidly.
Dutchess County, like many across the state and country, is experiencing a situation where there are not enough ambulances available to respond to calls for service. In 2023 in Dutchess County, more than 400 calls went unanswered by ambulances, according to Smith, with many of the patients finding another way to get to the hospital.
Forty percent of the priority one calls in 2023 did not have an ambulance on scene within the recommended nine minutes, which is the amount of time considered to be the best chance to keep a patient alive, according to Smith. Priority one calls include emergencies including cardiac events, strokes, or major injuries that result in major blood loss.
Several reasons impact ambulance response times, with the lack of volunteers being one of the top reasons. For more than 50 years, most ambulances have been operated by volunteer ambulance or fire departments. With the number of volunteers dwindling, a reliance on commercial ambulances has risen. Unfortunately, the low pay associated with being an EMT or paramedic with a commercial ambulance service has forced many qualified personnel to leave for higher-paying, less-stressful jobs in other fields. Smith did note that commercial ambulance companies pay their EMTs and medics to be ready at a moment’s notice yet the companies can only bill for calls that the crew responds to. “It’s a financial burden to pay for a crew just to be ready when you can’t make any money unless the crew responds to a call,” Smith said.
Another reason for the slowed response is that ambulance crews are often busy…
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