EMT
Training Fund under attack - again
Governor
wants to take back money earmarked for training EMS volunteers
TRENTON - In a budget-balancing move similarly
attempted during several previous administrations, Gov. Jon Corzine plans
to redirect $4 million from the Emergency Medical Technician Training Fund
to the general fund.
The recommendation, made public late last
week, would jeopardize the financial stability of the state's approximately
400 volunteer first aid and rescue squads, said Sue Van Orden, president
of the 80-year-old nonprofit New Jersey State First Aid Council.
The NJSFAC represents more than 20,000 EMS
volunteers affiliated with 365 of those squads.
"The EMT Training Fund is the only thing
that helps our organization remain solvent," said Van Orden, an active,
28-year volunteer EMT with the Lincoln Park First Aid Squad. Considering
already committed expenditures, we estimate a $4 million loss would leave
us with a mere fraction of our bare-bones operating budget.
"Most of our volunteers donate hundreds
of hours every year while on call, riding the ambulances, and on training
and education," Van Orden said. "Losing the EMT Training Fund will mean
people will have to pay for their training to volunteer. That's absurd."
The backbone of the nation's oldest and
largest basic life support (BLS) system, NJSFAC-affiliated EMS volunteers
answered 404,489 calls in 2007. They donated nearly 2,612,000 man hours,
which, if billed at the standard $12.50/hour entry-level EMT rate, would
have cost taxpayers more than $32.5 million.
"Doing more with less has always been standard
operating procedure for our volunteers," Van Orden said. Consider the following:
- Many squads purchase their ambulances, maintain
equipment, own and maintain their own buildings with little or no support
from their municipalities, relying instead on donations or squad fund-raisers.
- Purchasing bandages has given way to much more
expensive items, such as defibrillators, EpiPens, $12,000 bariatric power-lift
stretchers and other supplies through activities like bake sales and
silent auctions, or begging at intersections or outside the local grocery
store.
"Until the lights and sirens go on, volunteer
EMS personnel are transparent in our daily activities as we serve our communities,"
Van Orden said. "This transparency has come back to haunt us.
"We've done such a good job for so long
that people just assume when the call goes out, we will respond," she said,
adding that BLS crews respond to every 911 call. Advanced life support
(ALS) and fire crews respond only to calls that require their expertise.
"BLS is an integral part of the emergency
response system, the foundation that ensures emergency medical care to
every resident," Van Orden said. "Without volunteers, much like a body
without a sturdy musculoskeletal foundation, the EMS system would collapse."
Collectively, the removal of EMT Training
Fund money and the changes recommended in the system redesign could seriously
jeopardize a practice that works unless system-wide funding and increased
support of the volunteer BLS community are found, Van Orden said. Without
them, taxes will increase in every community across the state and add yet
another burden to already stretched municipal budgets.
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