Committee hears bill to restore COVID-era option letting firefighter drive ambulance when EMT staffing is low

Representative Jennifer Rhodes, the bill’s prime sponsor, told the House Committee on Health and Human Services and Elderly Affairs that the measure grew out of requests from local volunteer fire chiefs struggling to staff emergency medical service (EMS) calls.

“This is not my wheelhouse,” Rhodes said, identifying herself and explaining the bill came from a constituent and local fire chief. She told the committee that an emergency order during the pandemic allowed one provider to care for a patient while another person — often a firefighter — drove the ambulance, and that smaller towns still face staffing shortages that make that flexibility useful.

The bill would reinstate by statute language mirroring the pandemic-era order so that a single certified emergency medical provider could be the only required medical caregiver on an ambulance crew while another person who is a member of the fire department or the transporting agency serves as…