Many Penrose residents have felt assured that in case of a serious accident or illness that Emergency Medical Services (EMS) would respond to a 911 call. Last week the community was notified that the EMS was being suspended on July 4, and that the local volunteers would not be available to respond to calls.
Penrose no longer has enough volunteer EMTs needed to provide quality medical response. The service has been understaffed for months and is now down to one provider that has been asked to respond to far too many calls. The one provider must protect their own life and well-being! We cannot expect one provider to drive the ambulance, care for a patient, lift and move a patient and make decisions related to the response, all at the same time. In addition, there are many times that multiple calls occur around the same time, creating an impossible response situation.
Residents of Florence must heed this suspension of service in Penrose. Florence EMS is now down to two volunteer EMTs that are making most of the EMS responses. These providers are overworked and at the edge of ending their voluntary service. We owe the Penrose and Florence EMTs a great debt of gratitude for continuing to provide service in the face of too few volunteers and a huge increase in calls. The communities involved are Penrose, Florence, Rockvale, Coal Creek and Williamsburg.
The number of volunteers has dwindled for both EMS and Florence Fire Protection District, which means fire protection is suffering in many cases. Many current volunteers work out of the area and are not available during the day and have a difficult time with many calls taking place in nighttime hours. Both EMS and fire should be considered in this decision, to prevent fire protection ending in the same way, with no firefighters to provide coverage.
Coverage must be found immediately to replace the existing EMS in Penrose. The future solution is an EMS that is partially paid EMTs and partially volunteers.
The only solution is a mil levy increase approved by the voters of the five residential areas. The best opportunity for a fix within the next year is the approval of a mil levy increase to be voted on in November 2021. If the mil levy is not approved at that time, the development of a local EMS will be delayed until at least the middle of 2023. At this time, the required mil increase has not been determined, but will be established and the community notified.
DECISION TIME HAS COME! Will the communities involved decide to step up and approve a mil levy increase to provide basic EMS and increased staffing for the Fire District? For the sake of these emergency services in all five eastern Fremont communities, please vote for a mil levy increase when presented to the voters!
Richard Hilderbrand
Concerned Penrose Citizen