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Officials Talk Over Ambulance Service Options

Sam Teresi, Jamestown mayor, discusses the Jamestown emergency medical services proposed options with the Jamestown City Council during a work session meeting Monday. P-J photo by Dennis Phillips

City of Jamestown officials have taken the preliminary steps of analyzing how it might be involved in ambulance call services if needed in the future.

On Monday, Sam Teresi, Jamestown mayor, presented city of Jamestown emergency medical services proposed options to the Jamestown City Council during its work session meeting. Teresi was joined by Harry Snellings, city police chief and public safety director, Sam Salemme, fire department deputy chief, and Joseph Bellitto, city comptroller, to explain how the fire department is answering more calls and the four possible options if city officials need to be more involved in ambulance call services.

The former WCA Hospital, now known as UPMC Chautauqua, with a division known as Alstar EMS, is the primary provider of EMS transport in the city. The Jamestown Fire Department isn’t the primary ambulance service provider for the city, but fills in when Alstar is out of service.

Teresi said Alstar is “ratcheting down its service,” which has led city officials to explore options about EMS service contributions to the community in case the city gets “pressed” into being a provider if UPMC Chautauqua “exits the arena.”

Snellings said Chet Harvey, former deputy fire chief who retired in December 2018, was the first to notice the number of calls for service increasing for the Jamestown Fire Department. Snellings said Salemme and himself have met with Alstar and county emergency service officials about the situation. He added based on the trends, it was brought to the attention of Teresi.

“We need to prepare just in case so we’re not caught short,” Snellings said.

Snellings said when comparing the first six months of calls in 2018 to 2019, the Jamestown Fire Department has increased its calls for service by 52.3% and mutual aid from outside city departments has increased by 135%. Teresi said the city doesn’t want to be a burden on other departments who are providing more mutual aid.

Salemme then discussed a calendar of the number of times Alstar has been out of service and for how many hours each day since May. There have been several days where Alstar has been out of service for 10 or more hours. He said Alstar is out of service usually because of answering another call or a lack of personnel.

Bellitto discussed the four possible options of providing ambulance services to the community. One involved adding 21 new employees to the Jamestown Fire Department. He said this would be at an expense of $2,841,430 a year. He said for all four options, the city is only projecting a revenue of $1,333,373 annually for providing ambulance services. For option one, this would be a deficit of $1,508,056, which would some how have to be funded through the city budget. All four options have a deficit, which would some how have to be funded through the city’s budget.

Option two would be a city run operation at an expense of $1,881,966, which means a deficit of $548,593. Option three would be to contract the service out to a private company. This has an estimated cost of $1,784,918, which would mean a $451,545 deficit. Option four would be a nonprofit operated by the local development corporation. The expenses annually for option four would be $1,74,918, for a deficit of $401,545.

Teresi said this analysis is only if the city would have to get into providing ambulance services. He said city officials don’t want to be involved in providing ambulance services. However, it’s a service that needs to be provided in the community and if there is no private or nonprofit company operating than the responsibility will belong to city government.

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