The Sheffield Volunteer Fire Department is leaving the ambulance business.

The department announced the move in a Facebook post.

“Effective January 1st 2022 Sheffield volunteer fire department ambulance service will no longer be providing a BLS (basic life support) Ambulance service to Sheffield and the surrounding area,” the fire department said. “This decision was made due to the strict regulations and requirements put on Ambulance services and the overwhelming stipulations that has caused a dwindle in EMS manpower. Sheffield VFD will be providing a QRS (quick response) service to Sheffield and the surrounding area. This means that SVFD will still be able to respond and provide a service for all medical calls however SVFD will not be transporting patients to the hospital.”

A town hall meeting was held Tuesday at the station, as well as streamed on Facebook, to discuss the move

Sheffield Fire Chief Matt Bell told attendees that the department has been fortunate to have “two to three very dedicated individuals” handling “85 percent of our EMS calls.”

He said those responders decided it was time to retire, a decision supported by the department.

Through this year, he explained, the department leased an EMT from EmergyCare for 16 hours a day, five days a week.

While that has been financially solvent to date, Bell explained “it has taken a toll on the funding for our ambulance service.” He said the evenings and weekends have fallen on the shoulders of one volunteer EMT, taking an “unhealthy toll on us as a department and the community (as we) cannot provide a good service as we should.”

The QRS option will allow the department to get a medically-certified individual to dispatch locations. The biggest change will be that the department will no longer then transport to the hospital.

Where that transport will come from isn’t finalized.

“Our conversations with the fire department are very preliminary,” said Todd Steele, EmergyCare’s director of operations.

“(We have) yet to have a conversation with the township officially about this,” he said. “We want to be part of the solution if we can but we’re really into this.”

He said EmergyCare has one 24/7-staffed ambulance in Kane and explained that a “vast majority of the time they’re going to be available.”

“I suspect that there will be more formal discussions here in the very near future,” Dave Basnak, EmergyCare’s assistant director, told the Times Observer.