Lisbon City council heard the plans for a hybrid staffing model for the Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance Service during a budget request at the Jan. 9 city council meeting.
LMVAS director Jacob Lindauer said the request for funding increase of $10,000 this year will help cover the program from Lisbon’s side, and a similar request will bed made to Mount Vernon City Council in coming weeks.
Lindauer also explained the reasoning behind moving to this model in an interview with the newspaper this week.
The ambulance service is not looking to replace the numerous volunteers that comprise their service, but looking to help make sure there are paramedics on staff to handle the increased volume of calls and for the more difficult medical emergencies.
With the hybrid staffing model, between three and four paramedics would work in shifts of 12 hours on, 12 hours on-call and then a period of time off of the schedule.
As Lindauer noted, the calls for service for the ambulance service have only increased in the past five years, going from 452 in 2017 to more than 900 calls in the past year, and those numbers are not slated to drop. As has been pointed out by Lisbon city council member Sara Nost at many council meetings, the ambulance service rarely misses or drops a call for service because they don’t have proper staffing. That’s testament to the dedication of the volunteers in the service.
As well, the service deals with handling more mutual aid calls from services in other communities throughout the year, and the state is currently dealing with a shortage of health care workers, especially in emergency medicine. This is a way to help our area maintain a staff of volunteers and professionals for those 911 calls in our area.
It’s something that helps our emergency medical service continue to provide excellent care to these communities, and definitely something both communities should consider moving forward.