PRESS EDITORIAL: Emergency call: Port needs more EMTs now

Since the days when the Port Washington ambulance was an elongated version of a 1950s Cadillac station wagon with a gumball-shaped red light on its roof, the city had faithfully provided 24/7 ambulance service for its citizens.

That changed on Nov. 9 when the Port Washington ambulance service was out of commission for nine hours because there were not enough emergency medical technicians to staff it.

It was fortunate that two Grafton ambulances were available to respond to Port Washington calls, but the coverage gap was nonetheless, in the words of Fire Chief Mark Mitchell, “dire,” and could well be repeated.

In fact, he told the Police and Fire Commission, the situation is worse than that, “it’s beyond dire, it’s catastrophic. We need help. We don’t have adequate staffing. It’s overwhelming.”

Only the city’s elected officials can give the chief the help he needs. Without delay, the Common Council must authorize the spending required to hire enough full-time EMTs to ensure that ambulance service and the expert first aid that goes with it are always available.

This is no time to complain about a “tight” city budget (aren’t they all?). Restoring EMT staffing is a priority that should move other budget needs down the list.

The cost will not be insignificant. EMTs are paid well and Port will likely have to compete for them with other communities. The days when the ambulance service consisted of a volunteer driver and stretcher bearers went the way of that Cadillac ambulance. Today’s ambulance crews increasingly are made up of highly trained professionals. Their skills, the life and death importance of their work and the hazards they face in the line of duty warrant generous pay.

The coronavirus pandemic has complicated EMTs’ work, dramatically increasing their work load while at the same time exposing them to dangers to their own health. Like the beleaguered front-line caregivers in hospitals, first responders are being put at risk by the irresponsible conduct of members of the public who have abetted the uncontrolled spread of the virus by refusing to follow mask and social distancing guidelines. It is not surprising that a number of EMTs have left the profession and that those who remain are in high demand.

Beyond addressing the current emergency, Port Washington’s hiring of full-time EMTs will be an acknowledgement of the inevitable—community ambulance services and fire departments are moving incrementally but steadily toward paid professional status. Volunteers, once the heart and soul of those services, will remain important, but their numbers are diminishing.

The financial burden of this change will lead to another inevitability—sharing the costs by consolidating departments into single units to serve several communities. This trend is well underway elsewhere and is showing an early sign in Ozaukee County with the Grafton and Saukville departments sharing management; Grafton Fire Chief Bill Rice works also as acting chief of the Saukville FD.     

In the Police and Fire Commission discussion of the EMT crisis, a member suggested that building the city’s proposed new firehouse would help alleviate the shortage by attracting applicants with such amenities as showers, sleeping accommodations and workout facilities. That has the ring of wishful thinking, but the subject of the firehouse was not out of context.

Port Washington should have a second fire station, but how much of a new firehouse it needs is an open question. A task force of city officials has recommended a fairly elaborate facility they say would be too big to fit on a 3.5 acre site offered free by the county and therefore would not be able to take advantage of the county’s offer to share construction costs.

The growing professional component of the fire department and the potential move toward consolidation certainly bears on the needs the new firehouse will have to fill. If a regional fire department and associated facilities are in the future of Ozaukee communities, how wise would it be to commit to an outsized, complex and extremely expensive firehouse designed to meet Port Washington’s own needs for many decades? Clues to an answer may come when a study of shared fire department services in the county is completed.

In the meantime, city officials might consider whether the expected price of more than $5 million for the wished-for firehouse should be reduced by going with a scaled-back facility and using the savings to pay full-time EMTs and firefighters.