County EMS in line to receive grant money
By Kevin Risner, krisner@advertiser-tribune.comSeneca County Emergency Medical Services are in line to receive whatever grant money is available to the county department. County EMS Director Ken Majors has submitted applications to three grant sources.
“The funny thing about medical equipment, it never gets cheaper,” Majors said. “It seems to always increase in cost.”
Majors said completing the grant applications was simplified because the process could be done online.
“I just filled out all the check boxes,” Majors said. “They make it rather simple with the Internet, so you don’t have to fill out mountains of paperwork to apply snail mail. You can actually do it on the Internet. It works real well. It took me probably a week of hit and miss working on it and getting information and resources, finding out how many runs we go on, how many transports we do, types of runs, how many fires, how many EMS runs.”
The three sources of grant money to which Majors applied are the Assistance to Firefighters Grant, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency with Homeland Security funds; The EMS Grant from the Ohio EMS department; and the Bureau of Workers Compensation Grant.
Majors said the Assistance to Firefighters Grant provides grants to supporting or related services, like EMS. That grant and the EMS Grant could provide money for several items of equipment or supplies for the local EMS services.
A few of the items that could be bought with the funds includes new ambulance stretchers, reflective vests, backboard straps, head immobilizers, splints, even gloves and bandaids. Majors said the EMS Grant has a lengthy list of approved items that can be purchased with grant money.
The Bureau of Workers Compensation Grant could provide stair chairs so emergency medical technicians would not need to lift patients and carry them down stairways. The stair chairs are built to ride smoothly down stairways, thus reducing the risk of injury to EMTs who would otherwise be lifting and carrying patients down stairways, Majors said.
Majors said he does have a few priorities he would like to address with grant funds.
“I’d like to replace our ambulance stretchers,” Majors said. “Even though they are in good repair, they are a little ungainly to use. The newer technology ones are lighter weight, they are stronger so they will hold more weight.”
Majors said the current ambulance stretchers are between seven and 15 years old. They are in good condition, but new stretchers would be easier to use and maintain.
“There really never has been a scheduled replacement program here for anything,” Majors said. “We replace it as it breaks. I hope to get to the point where we can start replacing things on a schedule.”
The EMS department buys one new ambulance about every three years, Majors said. The oldest ambulance in regular service right now was bought in 1995. Majors said that ambulance is still in very good condition, but expects to replace it within the next year.
Majors said he would also like to buy protective clothing for EMTs. He said he would like to provide uniform jump suits for all EMTs, so each EMT would have a quick uniform to put on in emergency situations and so EMTs would be easily identifiable at emergency sites.
“From an organizational standpoint, uniforms would be wonderful,” Majors said.
Majors said the local EMS does bill for service, but it is a break even proposition at best. He said a local tax levy has never been needed to support the EMS services and he hopes a levy is never needed. The grants are an important source for funds.
“Everything we do costs money,” Majors said. “Through the grants programs, hopefully I can get some money from where ever it comes from—from the federal government, from the state government, and from workers comp money—that will offset the cost to tax payers locally and we don’t have to overtax our system.
“I hate to ever have to think about doing a levy for EMS. Thank God, we’ve never had to do that, and hopefully we’ll never have to.”
