Calls for ambulance service rising

A recent increase in ambulance calls has the Associated Ambulance Authority baffled as to the cause.

In 2004, the highest number of monthly calls was 49. This year, the highest number is 96 calls in September, and there are two other months that have received 95 calls.

“We’ve never seen this much activity,” Ambulance Administrator Anna Howard said. “We’ve steadily crept up on our number of calls, but nothing like this year. For unknown reasons, this year has had an amazing jump.”
According to Howard, there are a few more medical calls than trauma, but on average they are the same.

“We don’t have a good explanation because it’s not all one thing,” Howard said. “Our car accident calls have actually decreased since I came here in 2002. We see all sorts of different medical issues, like strokes and heart attacks as well as trauma, so it’s hard to pinpoint what the problem is.”

The average age of the patients varies as well.

“Some wonder if the increase has to do with the higher elderly rate in Donley County, but some of these patients aren’t elderly,” Howard said. “The average age of the patients is pretty much even because there is the same amount of people in each group.”

The majority of the calls are from Donley County citizens.

“We don’t get that many calls from people out of town or just passing through,” Howard said. “In fact in October, we had 56 calls from Donley County citizens and 17 from non-citizens. We thought that was impressive.”

One hypothesis Howard has is that people are putting off going to their primary physician.

“They wait until they start feeling really bad and then finally call the ambulance.”

The amount of calls frequently requires two ambulances running.

“We’re definitely staying busy,” Howard said. “We are fortunate to be able to run two ambulances in Donley County because a lot of small places are struggling to actually get a crew for their ambulance. We staff two trucks 24/7 with personnel, and with the increased calls we even have to staff a third truck at times, but it hasn’t affected the payroll yet.”

The two brand new ambulances received in March already have 24,000 miles on them.

“The old ambulances we replaced got 8.6-9.0 miles per gallon, while the new trucks get 10.9 so that’s good,” Howard said.

“We hope to keep these ambulances until they get at least 300,000 miles on them.”
Howard said the biggest issue with the increased calls is the fuel cost.

“We are still in budget as far as fuel, but if it keeps up like this I’m sure we’ll be over it soon,” she said. “We’ll be $4,000-$5,000 over the fuel budget if we keep up with the call volume of 80-90 calls a month.”

The amount of calls has not affected the care patients receive, though.

“We have a great crew,” Howard said. “If we need a third crew, someone is always going to be there. We have enough people willing to serve the community as EMTs who will even on the rare occasion act as a first responder when all three ambulances are out to provide immediate emergency care until one of our ambulances arrive. To me, that’s unheard of in a rural community.”