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Ambulance services to lower, waive fees if towns share

By Steve Landwehr
STAFF WRITER
Published: July 2, 2009

Local ambulance service providers are locked in a bidding war, and taxpayers are the winners.

The companies are offering to eliminate or reduce their monthly fees if neighboring communities agree to share ambulance service.

In Hamilton, Lyons Ambulance recently proposed a no-cost contract to the town if it would join forces with neighboring Wenham. On Monday night, the Hamilton selectmen got a similar proposition from Action Ambulance that also included an offer to buy the town's two used ambulances.

A similar arrangement just began in Ipswich and Rowley. Action CEO Michael Woronka said the company began servicing Rowley yesterday with an ambulance the company keeps at the Linebrook Road fire station in Ipswich.

Lyons provided service in Ipswich until 2006 and charged the town nearly $400,000 that year. It did not submit a bid in 2007, and when Action came in with a contract offer for $245,000, officials snapped it up.

The company has been operating in Ipswich since then, and the town budgeted more than $200,000 for its contract this year. For that, the company has stationed an advanced life support ambulance at the former Cable Hospital on Route 1A and a basic life support ambulance on Linebrook Road.

Woronka said that was upgraded to advanced life support yesterday, which Rowley will get for free.

In his letter to the Hamilton selectmen, Woronka wrote that the ambulance garaged at the Cable Center, two miles from the Hamilton town line, would provide residents with faster advanced life support response times than is currently available from anyone else.

Ipswich's "unique geographical layout" makes it impossible to eliminate its service charge there, Woronka said, but if Hamilton comes on board, Ipswich might realize as much as $60,000 in savings.

In May, Lyons waived its annual fee for Danvers, saving the town $630,000 over the next four years.

"In these economic times, it makes sense to combine services if you can have an economic gain," Kevin Lyons, the owner of Lyons Ambulance, said.

He also hinted the deep discounting might be a reflection of the law of supply and demand.

"There are more ambulance services out there than there's a need for," said Lyons, whose family business has been around for 105 years.

Woronka said his company is able to make free or discounted service available because it is adding customers without adding equipment or manpower.

The Hamilton selectmen turned Action's proposal over to a committee studying the future of ambulance service in town.

These are uncharted waters for Hamilton, which for 40 years had town ambulances run by the Police Department. That came to an abrupt end last August, when problems with the medical training records of police officers came to light.

The state's Office of Emergency Medical Services subsequently pulled the town's ambulance license, reprimanded some officers and revoked the certifications of others. In April, a study committee recommended that if town service is restored, control should not be in the hands of the Police Department. It further recommended exploring private ambulance service.

Since August, Lyons has been providing service at no cost to the town, without a contract. Basic and advanced life support services have been dispatched from either of the company's two garages, in Beverly and Danvers.

The company has been charging Wenham $50,000 for the same service, but would waive the fee if Hamilton and Wenham both agree to a new contract. Wenham selectmen have enthusiastically endorsed the proposal.

It's not yet clear if ambulances would continue to be stationed in Beverly and Danvers, or if one might be located in Hamilton's relatively new Public Safety Building, which would have plenty of free space if the town's ambulances are sold.

While Action Ambulance is not offering the same no-cost deal in Ipswich, Pat McNally, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, was encouraged the bill might be moving in the right direction.

"Whatever we can negotiate is better than what we're doing now," McNally said. "If it can be zero in the future, that would be even better."