Penalty for missed calls not likely |
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By NICOLE CARTRETTE The Columbus County Board of Commissioners informally agreed Monday (Oct.1) that rescue squads would not be fined for missed calls. No vote was taken but few if any spoke in favor of such an action. Statements in that memo and official minutes from the steering committee meeting are in dispute. The Fayetteville Observer reported on the Friday after The News Reporter article ran that Commissioner James Prevatte said the terminally ill patient died some time later and that the death was not blamed on the transport delay. Monday no board member made any mention of the memo or incident reported in the memo and steering committee minutes. “Missed and delayed calls seem like an issue not being addressed,” Commissioner Ricky Bullard said. He requested discussion on the issue. “I was not at the meeting in December when the recommendation was made for (county manager ) to Mr. (Jim) Varner to levy a penalty of $500 for each missed call,” said Commissioner James Prevatte, a steering committee member. “I just didn’t know when the meeting was. “I think what we need to do is start off determining what a missed call is,” Prevatte said, concerned about squads being unfairly penalized for missing calls for reasons they can’t help. “At least one didn’t have the staff or personnel to man the calls,” Prevatte said. “I feel like a penalty is justifiable if it is a continuing thing. “I would like to suggest we look at it and define a missed call. We need to look real close – a penalty of $500 is a lot of money. I could see a graduated scale if it is a continuing thing.” Squads in the county have varying credentials, from emergency medical technician basic to emergency medical technician intermediate, to paramedic. The state mandates, in part, what procedures and medications different levels of certification are permitted to undertake. “What would we do with the money (if squads) were fined,” Commissioner Bill Memory asked, adding that he, too, had questions about how a missed call should be defined. “What I see here is a quagmire we are really and truly going to get bogged down,” Memory said. Prevatte pointed out that mutual aid or the act of calling in another squad from out of the area to assist need not be abused. He pointed out mutual aid was not intended to cover for squads that just couldn’t make it to a call. “I use to be on the rescue and fire department at Cerro Gordo. “I want to help these guys,” Commissioner Ricky Bullard said also wanting a definition of a missed call. “If you are out on another call you are not missing that call. There may not be as many missed calls as we think there are.” “We are fortunate enough to have volunteers. All work hard and diligently just like they are drawing a paycheck –to penalize someone like that I would just have to be they were arbitrarily missing a call, ” Commissioner Amon McKenzie said. “I commend all of these fire and rescue personnel; like our job up here, it’s unappreciated. The steering committee is going to have to define some things,” Commissioner Ronald Gore said. He said one squad, which he did not name, that has an “excessively high” number of missed calls is unique in that it does not bill for its services. “I think every squad should be required to bill,” Gore said, adding that it should be included in the contracts with the county. “Unless you need them you really don’t know how to appreciate them,” Commissioner Lynwood Norris said praising the squads but making no comment about the missed call situation. Chairman Sammie Jacobs told about his dad’s house burning down when Jacobs was a child and how the fire department was formed afterward with bake sales and donations. He said the system had come a long way from someone throwing a person in the back of a car to take them to the hospital. “I know very well what it takes,” Jacobs said. “We’re not going to cripple the departments in any way; we are going to work with them to make them better for the whole county,” Jacobs said. Minutes and letters to squads show that one squad missed 63 calls from May 2006 to August 2007. Another had missed 14. Missed calls are defined as first-out calls. No squad is censured for missing a second-out call – meaning the squad is already out on its first call. Under state law, the county is required to have service available 24 hours and cover all first-out calls. This means a squad cannot abandon its own post if it does not have enough members to cover its own service area for a first-out call. A review of steering committee minutes shows missed calls was the first topic of discussion at nearly every steering committee meeting. Contract medical director Dr. Fred Obrecht, who recently resigned and is working out his 60-day notice, accused the board of being more concerned with votes and reelection than problems that needed attention in the EMS system. His resignation came months after eight of nine rescue chiefs asked that he be removed and weeks after the county ended a nurse liaison contract with the hospital, ending nurse Becky Smith’s county duties. Still to come in upcoming issues of The News Reporter: emergency rescue squad funding ... where does it come from and where is it going.
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