Libby ambulance spurns county talks

Discussions about the future of emergency medical services in Lincoln County hit a snag last week after Libby Volunteer Ambulance Service withdrew from the talks.

Facing a decline in volunteers, an increase in medical transport calls and mounting costs, the county’s trio of independent ambulance organizations agreed in October to participate in an assessment for the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners. Officials arranged to bring in a consultant to review the problems befalling the volunteer services and present possible solutions.

“What the assessment will hopefully do for us is to understand what’s reliable and sustainable in the future, and have this group that’s doing the assessment maybe make some recommendations,” said County Commissioner Jerry Bennett (D-2), who is spearheading the effort. “That doesn’t mean we have to follow them.”

Bennett thought the three ambulance services were on board to participate when he received news that Libby pulled out on the advice of legal counsel. Volunteer organizations in Eureka and Troy remain engaged, Bennett said.

While each operates as an independent nonprofit, the three ambulance services receive taxpayer dollars through county levies. That does little to fix the problem of volunteer shortfalls.

Jeff Holder, president of Libby’s service, could not be reached for comment regarding his organization’s withdrawal from the assessment, but in an earlier interview said finding volunteers had long been a problem.

The organization is down to about 16 staffers, he said.

“In my mind, industry is the biggest issue that we have,” Holder said. “In ’92, when ASARCO closed, Libby ambulance had 50 volunteers; we have 16 now. When the industry went away here, the people who mostly volunteered, they had to leave and go find work. That’s just kind of where we are at.”

The service also has been stretched thin by non-emergency transports to Kalispell, Holder said. The out-of-town trip means the service loses an ambulance and two staffers for upwards of five hours, he said.

“If we’ve got a truck going to Kalispell and two more [people] on call, that’s four people. The one truck’s gone and another truck is on 911 calls — that’s where we have trouble,” Holder said. “I have a little print shop here in town and I’ve locked the doors and headed out to calls multiple times because we were in that position.”

Holder, though, expressed reservations about the assessment. He worried it would lead to the disbanding of the volunteer organizations.

“I see a couple of scenarios,” he said. “For the sake of argument, if the volunteer groups were replaced by a county-paid service, it would cost the taxpayers massive amounts of money. The other scenario being an outside service [coming in] and what their requirements are to come into a place, I have no idea. … They’re a big business.”

Mark Peck, chairman of the board of county commissioners, said the problems facing volunteer ambulance services will only grow worse in the future. Volunteerism is down, he said, and the existing staff is “getting run into the ground.”

“We just see a major issue down the road here if we don’t start addressing how we provide EMS services here in the future,” Peck said. “The assessment was to look at our resources, look at the whole county and try to come up with some recommendations for possible changes or improvements to what we were doing.”

Bennett said he planned to sit down with the Libby organization’s board to discuss their move to withdraw from the assessment. The problems facing volunteer emergency services are not unique to Lincoln County, he said.

“We just want to take a good look at that [situation] and maybe get some recommendations as to how maybe we could adapt the services,” Bennett said. “I don’t have any agenda here. It’s just that people expect that when they call 911 — whether it’s the sheriff’s office or the ambulance — that someone is going to show up.”