More than 20 people gathered at the Glenwood City Fire station on Wednesday, August 18th to discuss the staffing of the Glenwood City Ambulance service. The group was made up mostly of officials of municipalities that receive service from the local ambulance.
This was the second meeting of the group after it was learned that the service has lost several Emergency Medical Technicians and several drivers. The number of EMTs has dropped close to what is required to staff the service on a 24/7 period.
Ambulance Co-director, Julie Lee has proposed that the service hire people from outside of the community to staff the ambulance, but Lee has indicated that there is no place to house them. She suggested that bedrooms be made available for overnight accommodations. But no action on this has taken place.
The first meeting ended with several questions that the group could not find suitable answers to and hopefully they could get sufficient information to address the question if the ambulance personnel are volunteers or employees of the city.
At the August 18th meeting information gathered by Lee and City Clerk/Treasurer Shari Rosenow differed on the term of what is a volunteer and what is an employee. After much discussion the group would get legal council in an attempt to answer the questions that they have.
The group was also apprised that basic run charges would be increased to $1,400 from the current $850. The group also will set up a meeting with LifeQuest. LifeQuest is the firm that does the billing and collection for the ambulance service. No date has been set for another meeting on the matter.
