Borough emergency services expand

MAT-SU -- Paramedic Denny Tranel was able to do something Tuesday that wasn't possible before emergency services were reorganized in the Mat-Su Borough this spring.

He was able to visit a 13-year-old girl who has a chronic illness. The visit didn't involve sirens or blaring red lights. It was a sit-down introduction to the girl, her family and her medical condition so that when and if a real emergency arises, paramedics already have most of the information they will need.

"Before, if you are a parent with a child that had a chronic illness, you could fax out an information sheet to the ambulance service. But if we wanted to do a home visit, we just didn't have the time," Tranel said. Wasilla ambulance crews were not fully staffed around the clock.

The information from the interview is then shared during training with other Wasilla emergency responders, Tranel said. Even information such as directions to the home and the best place for an injection are noted.

Tranel is a full-time licensed clinical social worker, but has for 10 years volunteered for the Wasilla ambulance service. Now he's a paid part-time paramedic under the new restructuring of emergency services.

The best result of the restructuring is the reduced response time for fires and medical emergencies in the Mat-Su borough since the system was revamped six weeks ago, medics and fire officials say.

Money -- $925,000 in funding approved for July 1 distribution by the Mat-Su Borough Assembly -- made a big difference in the turnaround, said Jack Krill Sr., chief of Central Mat-Su Fire Department.

"Now we are able to staff a three-man crew 24 hours a day in Wasilla," Krill said. "Maybe they're working a six-hour shift, and four of the hours are paid. They've told us they will work an extra two hours as volunteer in order to provide a much better service."

Medical emergencies in four primary ambulance districts, Palmer, Wasilla, Meadow Lakes-Big Lake and Talkteena-Trapper Creek, had been staffed primarily by volunteers who were brought on for shift pay May 15 with an initial sum of $29,000.

Butte, Sutton, Palmer, Wasilla, Houston, Big Lake, Meadow Lakes, Willow, Talkeetna and Trapper Creek all have their own ambulance services. With an area of 24,000 square miles to cover and a shortage of volunteers, people grew frustrated with slow response times, Krill said. Wasilla itself has the second-busiest ambulance service in the state, he said, and uses 40 volunteers.

The change gave each individual fire and emergency medical services station more autonomy, while cutting down on the number of people who answer directly to the public safety department head -- or, under the new title, the director of emergency services. Each station is staffing its own hours based on peak-time service needs.

The changes were suggested in a report compiled by the Fire/EMS/Rescue study group, a group put together by Borough Manager John Duffy in November. The group reviewed the present delivery of emergency response services and offered recommendations for improvements.

"EMS is having difficulty responding in an adequate manner, in a timely manner," Duffy said. "So what we're attempting to do is put more [resources] to the responders."

The report showed that the borough's population growth has resulted in an increase in demand of emergency services, while the demand for fire services have decreased, apparently due to fire prevention programs, changes in building technology, the use of building codes by leading lending institutions and, perhaps most importantly, an expansion of natural gas service that has caused a decrease in the use of wood as a heating method.

Since 1995, the number of emergency medical service calls has risen from 3,063 to 4,133. The jump resulted in an increase in re-pages -- or second calls -- for an ambulance, which lengthens response times to what could be critical incidents. The Wasilla Lakes department, for example, had 52 re-pages last December.

The reorganization addressed some of those concerns by adding ambulances and increasing volunteer hours.

Wasilla reported only five re-pages from mid-May to mid-June.

A volunteer coordinator was added, at a cost of approximately $65,000, to help oversee the 400-some volunteers who make up the borough's EMS department. In addition to a coordinator, those volunteers receive additional incentives, such as a $20-a-month wellness fee that would help cover the cost of a gym membership, and a flexible retirement plan. Incentive programs, such as advertising in local media outlets, are also included in the budget to address the shrinking numbers of volunteers.

Tranel said that it's much better now because he is always working with a crew of three and he's been able to see a difference in saving lives.

Last month he was able to save two people who had just suffered cardiac arrests because he could get to them faster than in the past, he said.

"With cardiac arrests the response time is so critical. We have cut it down to less than two minutes now from the point of being paged to being on the road," Tranel said.

In the past, that response time was five to eight minutes because the volunteer medics had to get to the ambulance first from their homes.