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EMS response highlights committee meeting

A county-wide emergency medical services response plan aimed at helping the county’s agencies address staffing challenges is inching closer to implementation.

The Council of Government’s Fire Services Committee discussed the issue during a recent meeting.

Chair Paul Pascuzzi said eight of the 10 providers in the county have signed onto the plan with the exceptions of Sheffield that has discontinued its ambulance service and the City of Warren “which has elected to hold off.”

Tim Johnson with the Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department said all the volunteer agencies that run BLS (basic life support) are on board, along with EmergyCare. He said the city will be discussing the issue in executive session next week.

“The big thing for city council,” he said, is there “may be some additional agreements requested with the townships. That will likely take the greatest amount of time.”

While the response plan is aimed at addressing elements of the EMS challenge in the county, it’s clear the system is still in crisis.

“We are definitely seeing more agencies going out of their home area and assisting others areas,” Public Safety Director Ken McCorrison said, explaining that the dispatching is “getting more difficult and more complex.”

Pascuzzi suggested officials need to start identifying those “high-risk areas. Data needs to drive some of that.”

McCorrison said there’s a meeting next week with several departments in the eastern portion of the county that are having trouble staffing especially during the day.

County officials have collaborated with Erie and Crawford counties on a study of the fire and EMS system in the three counties and consultants from the state Department of Community and Economic Development were assigned to the project.

But those contacts have gone silent.

Pascuzzi said he spoke with a DCED representative and “told her we’re far from being impressed with the DCED’s communication ability” and that “they don’t have a sense of urgency in Harrisburg.”

“Maybe people in Harrisburg don’t like being held accountable but that’s our job,” he said.

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