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Committee raises concerns after parish moves EMS into Baton Rouge Fire; Central explores local ambulance options
Summary
Committee members said a parish decision to consolidate EMS with Baton Rouge Fire could leave Central with reduced ambulance service; members discussed response-time data, parish-wide millage revenues and preliminary cost estimates for city-provided ambulances.
Committee members and staff discussed emergency medical services (EMS) coverage after East Baton Rouge Parish announced plans to consolidate EMS under Baton Rouge Fire. Several speakers called the move a "bombshell" and said Central needs clearer information on how reimbursements and resource sharing will work.
"If we weren't gonna marry resources, then I don't see why we made a change," Mayor Wiggins said, adding that Baton Rouge Fire will be reimbursed for supplies when it responds and questioning how that would affect other parish fire districts. He said Central's residents pay into a parish-wide EMS millage and that the city should examine whether it is receiving commensurate service.
Committee members said Central currently has one EMS unit stationed in the city and that EMS's nine-minute response-time goal is met in Central only a small portion of the time. "EMS has established a 9 minute call time as their metric," a committee speaker said, and another speaker said the unit "beat that 12% of the time." Members discussed the difference between the EMS metric and fire-service arrival targets and described instances when an ambulance took up to 40 minutes to reach a scene while the fire department had already treated the patient.
Speakers gave preliminary cost figures for city-operated ambulances: standing up one ambulance was estimated in discussion at about $960,000 per year; running two ambulances continuously would cost roughly $1.5 million per year, the meeting record shows. Meeting participants suggested transport billing from assisted-living and senior centers could offset some operating costs and noted parishwide millage revenue (participants estimated roughly $700,000) could be applied, but no funding plan was adopted.
A staff member said that, if the city wanted to designate a private ambulance provider as the primary transporter inside city limits, the council would need to adopt an ordinance to declare that provider the primary ambulance service for Central. No vote or ordinance was introduced at the meeting.
Ending: Committee members asked staff to continue tracking response-time and billing data and to return with clearer revenue figures and a possible funding plan if the committee elects to consider underwriting an ambulance service.
