Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — Whether the town should stick with their current 50 percent in-town coverage contract with Crown Ambulance or switch to full-time in-town coverage with the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department for an additional $15,000 was a question the Limestone Board of Selectpeople feels the taxpayers should make.
Resultantly, they sought the community’s input during a July 26 public hearing.
In the name of cost savings, a fair number of residents surprisingly threw a third option on the table and asked the selectpeople to find out how much it would cost to remove the ambulance from town altogether and contract with the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department to respond out of their Caribou station, like the towns of Woodland and New Sweden do.
Resident Jon Poitras, a budget committee member, aptly summarized the situation toward the end of the meeting.
“We’ve got two split groups here; you have a group who doesn’t want taxes to go up and you have another group who wants to see a better service,” he said.
From Poitras’ standpoint, he didn’t want to see taxes go up — a sentiment echoed by many in the room.
Others, like Melissa Devoe, didn’t see the sense in going from 50 percent in-town coverage to zero.
“We would never have an ambulance in town — if I have an asthma attack and I can’t breathe, me waiting for 911 and an ambulance to come from Caribou probably isn’t going to help me; I’m probably going to be dead before they get here,” she described.
A straw poll taken toward the end of the meeting, to provide the selectpeople with some information as to whether they should call a budget committee meeting to figure out where the $15,000 would come from, placed 22 voters in favor of going with the new contract with the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department, 14 opposed and a total of 46 individuals in attendance.
The catalyst for the public hearing was a potential contract hammered out by Caribou and Limestone officials, which would place the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department in charge of providing emergency medical care for Limestone residents.
For an additional $15,000 on top of what the town is already paying Crown Ambulance to keep an ambulance in town 50 percent of the time, the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department would place an ambulance and a certified paramedic in town at all hours of the day.
As Limestone Fire Chief Paul Durepo explained, the proposal states that Caribou would hire three paramedics to work in Limestone seven days a week, working 24-hour shifts.
Continuously since 1994, the Loring Development Authority has paid for a 24/7 coverage by an EMT/firefighter to be stationed at the Loring Fire Station. The duty of staffing the Loring station is shared between three full-time and one part-time individual.
With the proposed contract, the current Loring staff would work side-by-side with the Caribou paramedics, who are also trained firefighters.
As Durepo explained, the Loring duo would work as firefighters if a fire call came in, responding to the scene to help extinguish the flames. If an emergency medical call came in, they would change hats and work as a Caribou Ambulance responders. Being both a paramedic/EMT and a firefighter would mean better fire and ambulance protection for the citizens of Limestone.
As discussed during the public hearing, the cost of taking an average ambulance ride is less expensive through the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department than through Crown Ambulance and their per capita rate is less as well: Limestone’s currently paying Crown Ambulance about $11.30 per citizen while it would cost $10.75 with the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department.
A source of contention during the public hearing was the additional $15,000 the town would need to raise every year in order for the contract to work — the additional funds would combine with an extra $12,000 paid by the LDA in order to provide benefits to the EMT/firefighters that currently work at Loring.
As expressed by resident Rodney Nason, there’s a large percentage of retired individuals living in Limestone who are on fixed incomes and they can’t handle the additional tax burden.
Durepo explained that having a large percentage of seniors in the community is a double-edged sword.
While many retired individuals are on fixed incomes, “those are the people that are going to be needing the ambulance to respond quickly.”
A few audience members speculated that, in perfect conditions, an ambulance responding from Caribou would only take a few minutes longer than an ambulance responding from the Loring Fire Station; Aroostook Fire Protection District One Lieutenant and EMTb (basic) Chris Durepo explained that those few minutes are very important.
“The difference is what they call early intervention; the earlier we can get to the patient, the better off your outcome is. I’m sure you’ve all seen those stroke commercials — every minute there’s a lack of oxygen to the brain is a loss of brain cells. The whole goal is to create a higher level of care for the people of Limestone, and the question is how much do you spend to make sure you have a high level of care.”
At the meeting’s end, residents began questioning the urgency of the situation as the community’s contract with Crown Ambulance doesn’t expire until December, 2013.
“Why don’t we just let this contract with Crown run out, and then go through this rigamarole during town meeting and just get it over with?” said one participant.
Selectperson Chair Jimmy Pelletier explained that only benefit of accomplishing a the contract now would be to provide the citizens with better services earlier, if that’s what the citizens chose.
Others thought many more interested parties would be able to voice their thoughts and concerns if this discussion had been during the annual town meeting, as the annual meetings are always better attended than special town meetings; Limestone’s annual town meeting in June drew approximately 20 more people than the June 26 public hearing.
As is the nature of the public hearing, the Selectpeople will take what they’ve gleaned during the public hearing and discuss their course of action during tonight’s meeting, held at 6:30 p.m. in the municipal building.
