PORT ANGELES — The potential melding of city and Clallam County Fire District No. 2 emergency services has Olympic Ambulance owner Bill Littlejohn wondering where his company might fit into a new scheme of things.
Littlejohn suggested Wednesday that the city’s intention might be “to get rid of Olympic Ambulance.”
A consolidation advisory committee last week unanimously recommended approval of consolidating District 2 and city emergency services into one tax district.
The plan that would double the property taxes District 2 property owners pay for emergency services to about $1.35 per $1,000 of valuation — to $270 for a $200,000 home — while keeping Port Angeles property owners at that tax rate, equal to the taxes they already pay for emergency services without specifically paying an emergency services levy.
But consolidation would also vastly improve emergency and firefighter services — especially to District 2 — with seven new firefighter-paramedics and the addition of a fully-staffed fire station at the existing Deer Park site, Fire Chief Dan McKeen has said, adding that it would improve upon Olympic Ambulance’s response times to District 2 medical emergencies.
But if a ballot measure is recommended for approval by the City Council and District 2 fire commission later this summer and approved by voters next year, will Sequim-based Olympic Ambulance be left out of the picture, threatening its ability to deliver emergency services to District 2 and to Joyce, Neah Bay and the rest of the county’s West End?
“We’re obviously a little concerned about that ourselves,” Littlejohn said Wednesday, explaining that Olympic Ambulance handles transport calls for Olympic Medical Center.
“To do those calls, we need the District 2 calls to keep the paramedics current,” Littlejohn said.
Olympic Medical Center spokeswoman Rhonda Curry, who was on the advisory committee, was on vacation Wednesday, and hospital CEO Eric Lewis was out of the office Wednesday afternoon.
If consolidation is approved, District 2 residents would pay a monthly utility fee of $4.35, or $52.20 a year, for emergency medical services, just as city residents do now, McKeen said Wednesday.
McKeen and Olympic Ambulance Director of Operations Cliff Watson said Wednesday that they were hopeful a public-private partnership can be worked out.
“We are having discussions with Olympic Ambulance to see what they can do to provide improved service delivery to District 2,” McKeen said.
Olympic Ambulance might be willing to increase staff and relocate an ambulance “to a location that would be mutually agreed upon that would be more beneficial to Fire District 2,” Watson said.
Olympic Ambulance provides contracted, user-fee-based paramedic services to city residents for basic life support through the city Fire Department.
It provides noncontracted, user-fee-based advanced life support services to District 2 residents.
A person trained in advanced life support can administer intravenous fluids and medication. Basic life support involves treating airway obstruction and cardiac arrest.
“I don’t think there’s a need for more [advanced life support] personnel unless your intent is to get rid of Olympic Ambulance on the part of the city,” Littlejohn said.
“I think they need to work more closely with us,” he said of the Fire Department.
He said emergency calls cost users an average of $500 to $700 a transport, but that 80 percent of transports are covered by Medicare and many by private insurance.
District 2 has a volunteer paramedic-emergency medical technician force of 60 that is supplemented by Olympic Ambulance paramedics but would combine with the Port Angeles Fire Department’s 24 volunteers in a consolidated fire department.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
