By Paul Wisniewski
ALDEN — In three weeks, the ambulance that answers a 911 call in Alden will come from a different company, and for the first time it will be parked in town around the clock.
Mercy Flight, also known as Mercy Ambulance, is scheduled to take over emergency ambulance service for the Town and Village of Alden on Dec. 1, The Alden Echo reported this month. Until then, the Lancaster Volunteer Ambulance Corps, which has covered Alden since 2016, is staying on under a temporary extension that runs through Nov. 30.
Here is what changes, what is known about the cost, and what residents still do not know.
What changes on Dec. 1
Under the town’s agreement, Mercy will stage a fully equipped advanced life support ambulance, staffed by an on-duty paramedic and an EMT, at the Alden Town Highway Department on Wende Road, according to the Echo. Alden’s volunteer fire companies will keep providing first-response medical care on scene, as they do now.
The town has pitched the dedicated ambulance as the main reason for the switch. In a message posted on the town website under the heading “A message from our Town Supervisor,” signed by Deputy Supervisor and Councilwoman Gwendolyn Bork, the town said: “For the first time, Alden will have a dedicated ambulance stationed in our community 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
“We believe having an ALS emergency ambulance right here in Alden, rather than relying solely on an ambulance coming from outside our community, will provide an important improvement in accessibility and response capability for our residents,” the message said.
How the switch happened
The change came abruptly. In a Sept. 15 Facebook statement, LVAC said the town had decided to sign with a new provider and that its Alden contract would expire at 11:59 p.m. the next day, the Echo reported in September. LVAC said it had negotiated with the town for nine months and warned that mutual aid from farther away might not match the coverage Alden had.
The Town Board voted Sept. 21 on a temporary extension with LVAC through Nov. 30. Fire chiefs from the Alden, Town Line, Crittenden and Millgrove departments wanted clearer notice and answers about mutual aid on calls that need more than one ambulance, and a meeting with the chiefs was set for the next night, the Echo reported.
Under that extension, the town pays LVAC $100 for every 911 response, WGRZ reported. LVAC’s chief of operations, Bernard Jerozal, said the ambulance corps could not financially sustain the service without some form of municipal help.
“Financially it was not viable to provide coverage without some sort of subsidy,” Jerozal told WGRZ. He said LVAC would still lose money on each call but would absorb the cost to keep residents covered.
“All the inflation, salary increases, vehicle increases, cost increases, it’s just getting to the point where places with a high percentage of Medicaid and Medicare patients, you get to the point where you are essentially losing money every time you go there,” he said.
Jerozal told The Buffalo News that LVAC answers 780 to 800 calls a year in Alden, according to the Echo.
Mercy’s pitch, and the paperwork
Scott Wooten, Mercy Flight’s executive vice president and an Alden resident since 2008, told the Town Board in September that the company intends to keep service at least as strong as residents have known, and apologized for how quickly the news landed during confidential negotiations, the Echo reported.
The board’s Oct. 19 agenda listed a resolution to approve an agreement with Mercy Flight Inc. and a second resolution to approve a financial hardship policy and application with Mercy Flight. The agenda does not describe the terms of either.
The town’s message asked for patience. “We recognize that change can create questions, particularly when people have heard different information,” it said. “We ask our residents to give us the opportunity to move forward and experience the benefits of having a dedicated ambulance in our community.”
What residents still do not know
Several practical questions have not been answered in public. The published record does not show what the Mercy agreement costs the town, if anything, or how the financial hardship policy will work for residents who get an ambulance bill. It also does not spell out which agency backs up the Alden ambulance when it is already on a call, the question the fire chiefs raised in September.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked Supervisor Colleen Pautler and Mercy Flight for the agreement’s terms, how the hardship policy works and the mutual-aid plan, and will update this story with their answers.
Jerozal, for his part, pointed to Albany. “New York State for the last three years has had EMS become an essential service,” he told WGRZ, adding that recent changes could “help every EMS agency in New York State.”
The next Alden Town Board meeting dates are posted on the town website.
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