The Montgomery Volunteer Ambulance Service needs aid.
Last week, Thursday and Friday, it was taken out of service due to staffing shortages, which meant local emergency calls were answered by North Memorial Health out of New Prague.
According to City Administrator Brian Heck, previous staffing issues have been worsened by the pandemic.
“We were having issues with staffing before covid hit, but now we are in real tough shape,” he said during a city council meeting on Monday.
Heck met with Ambulance Director Dave Gaul and Assistant Director April Ehmke on November 25 to discuss staffing the service. At that time,
there were eight EMTs and five drivers (EMRs) available to cover shifts which requires at least two but preferably three personnel seven days a week.
That number is lower now, Heck said.
“We lost a couple more EMTs, at least temporarily, because they are in quarantine,” he said. “The last couple of days, especially the weekdays, the ambulance has been taken out of service because we don’t have staff to run the number of people required to run the ambulance.”
Heck said when North Memorial Health is used, it also strains other local departments (fire and police) because they act as first responders and wait at scenes longer times than normal.
Read more in the print edition.
Staffing shortages impact ambulance service
