|
Rescue volunteer decline called 'critical'
By Mike Bollinger • Staff Writer
WARM SPRINGS and MONTEREY - When someone needs an ambulance in Bath or Highland counties, as well as many other rural areas, volunteers leave their jobs and families and answer the call.
But it's becoming more and more difficult to find people willing to give up the time to answer calls and take the necessary training. Area emergency services officials and volunteers offer several reasons for the lack of volunteers, and all agree there is no quick fix.
"You have a lot of people out there who can't get off work to run calls," said Stuart Hall, a Bath County supervisor who serves as the county's emergency services director. "We need to train more younger people if we can. We just don't have enough, and a lot of the ones we do have are older people."
Highland County Rescue Squad Captain Ronald Wimer said Highland is definitely facing a volunteer crunch, and its remote location adds to the problem. "We are some distance away from the hospitals, so you can end up with a lot of time tied up when you do a transport," Wimer said.
Highland supervisors and emergency services director Robin Sullenberger said changing times and values may also play a part in the decline in volunteerism.
"I don't think the spirit of volunteerism is what is once was," he said. "Also, the lack of volunteers is a product of pure numbers, particularly in Highland. We are seeing a decline in population and have less younger people in the county. Highland and Bath have both benefited tremendously from the efforts of volunteers over the years."
Time is a major concern for those who consider volunteering, said Mike Spurgeon, captain of the Hot Springs Rescue Squad. "It is getting harder and harder to find committed people willing to give up their time. The rescue squad is a time-consuming job. It takes 110 hours of training to become an EMT (emergency medical technician), not counting the time you have to ride with an experienced person to become certified and the time it takes for continuing education to maintain your certification," he said.
"We are at a pretty critical juncture. The volunteer base is just not there. We have a lot of people sign up to take the classes, but when they find out they need three to five months of classes one or two nights a week, they go 'whoa, wait a minute.' It is getting worse every day," Spurgeon said.
Andy Seabolt, Bath County emergency services coordinator, said in the past, normal attrition in EMS (emergency medical services) units has been balanced by the addition of new members. That is not happening now. "Over the past four to five years, we are not seeing the same rate of people coming in," he said. "It is usually cyclic. Normally squads will go through dry spells and wet spells. We are now staying on a slow curve going down. We aren't getting any new folks, and we are hurting."
Seabolt agrees with Spurgeon's assessment. "We are running on skeleton crews right now. Typically, the same people are answering every call. They are leaving their jobs and thankfully, we have employers that allow people to leave work. Otherwise, some calls would not get answered."
With the same people answering the majority of the calls, burnout is a real risk. "Folks are getting tired," Seabolt said.
He also praised Bath Community Hospital, which allows its transport crews to answer calls if rescue squads are unable to do so. However, he said, because they are making transportation calls for the hospital, it cannot be assumed they will be available.
Seabolt said the situation in Millboro has improved slightly - Burnsville is doing "really well" and Hot Springs "is really hurting."
While training is time-consuming, Seabolt defended the need for it. "A lot of people fuss about why they have to do all that training, but you have a person's life in your hands and are operating under a doctor's license when you go on a call," he said.
Dr. George Damewood of Highland Medical Center serves as operating medical director for the Hot Springs and Burnsville EMS units. He said volunteers in the area have traditionally been stretched thin and the danger of not having enough people is real.
"People don't realize how much time and effort they (volunteers) put in. There are many hours of training, and then they must upkeep with many hours more. They never know when they will be needed. They are very underappreciated. They have to leave their jobs, and this is sometimes easy, sometimes not. It is a thin line of people, and I think of these people as saints," Damewood said.
Damewood has given much thought to the volunteer situation, and has proposed an "RTR" program - recruitment, training and retention. "If all of these don't happen, you have a problem," he said. "We need to cast out a wide net from those just out of high school to semi-retirees in the area and also reach out to churches and community groups."
If 100 people sign up for a class, Damewood said, 10 to 20 of those will finish it, and of those, two or three will decide to volunteer their time.
Retention is a problem largely due to burnout, according to Damewood, but due to other factors as well. "There are few monetary rewards. There is the reward of a job well done and the camaraderie of the squad, but the fact is, there are less and less people volunteering," he said.
Damewood said he and Highland County volunteer Paul Klein have worked to set up a fund that helps pay for the training in order to help attract volunteers. "We have gotten some volunteers out of this. The council (Central Shenandoah EMS) is always willing to set up classes when there is enough interest," he said.
"The people of Highland and Bath have been generous. It costs about $100 up front to enter EMS classes. The fund has been successful in encouraging people to take the classes and squads in both counties have been augmented," Klein said.
For the recruitment, training and retention program to really work, Damewood said, someone needs to be salaried on the county level to be in charge of it. "They need to be paramedic-level and fire department trained, operate independent of the agency and not interfere with the day-today operations. They need to be the primary resource for getting people involved," he said.
"I worry that at some point, we will have no one to respond. When did this crisis start? Years ago," Damewood said.
Klein and two Bath County volunteers, Perlista Henry and Buddy McLaughlin, share the opinion the situation is getting worse.
"It is a difficult process to become an EMT," Klein said. There are more than 100 hours of training involved, plus experience riding with experienced people. It is not something everybody wants to do."
"It is not just a Bath County problem, it is a statewide problem," Henry said. "There are more demands on people's time. They have to work, and with the economy the way it is some likely have to take a second job. EMS has more and more requirements. That is not a bad thing, but it does put more restraints on time."
McLaughlin said the problem has gotten decidedly worse over the past three years. "There are just not that many people that want to do it anymore. There is the amount of training, then there is the cost of getting somewhere to take the training. I think people still care, but with the way the economy is people have to work and don't have time to volunteer," he said.
Klein took the training when he was 60 because he "wanted to see what it was like." He had been exposed to EMS work previously and quickly plunged into it once trained.
"Once I got started, I couldn't stop. It grabs hold of you. You feel you have to run this call and you have to go take care of this person. It is rewarding, wonderful work, but not everybody is temperamentally suited to it," he said. Klein cut back his schedule recently and has not run a call since March.
McLaughlin said he believes some type of adjustment will need to be made in the number of hours of training needed. He emphasized all training is important, but believes some change will be necessary in order for people to volunteer.
Henry, who along with McLaughlin has received the Governor's Award for Outstanding Pre-Hospital Provider, said she has seen a steady decline in the number of volunteers over the past 10 years. "A lot of people will take the training and not really realize what they are getting into. They really don't want to get up at 3 a.m. because grandma's vomiting," she said.
Henry also noted that with fewer than 5,000 residents, Bath County has a small population to draw from. With fewer than 2,500, that is an issue in Highland as well.
"We rack our heads all the time thinking about what to do. We have incorporated the fire department to help us drive and lift. Right now, it's just tough. There is definitely no simple solution, and we will keep struggling along and see what we can come up with," McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin is also thankful area employers recognize the need for volunteers. "Those who employ emergency service personnel are very generous. They let people off and don't dock them for their time. That has helped us a lot, and we appreciate it and hope that will continue," he said.
Paid personnel
needed?
Some smaller localities have been forced to turn to paid EMS personnel or a combination of paid personnel and volunteers in order to make sure calls are answered. Opinions are mixed on whether that will happen here, and whether it would be a good thing to do.
"That would be expensive - I don't want it," Seabolt said. "It possibly is in the future, but we haven't exhausted other areas and are working hard to get volunteers in."
In Bath County's case, Seabolt said paid crews would need to be stationed on both sides of Warm Springs Mountain in order to keep response times down. "A 20-30 minute response time is not acceptable. People die," he said.
In order to fully staff two facilities with paid crews, Seabolt said it would take 13 people. He said each crew would have two people, and three crews would be needed to cover all shifts in addition to a person to manage the operation. "You are talking about $50,000-$60,000 per person once all the benefits and expenses are figured in," he said.
In some areas where combinations of paid personnel and volunteers are used, Seabolt said a rift develops between the two and volunteers begin to feel their work is not appreciated.
"We have a proud history of volunteerism, and once you open Pandora's Box, I'm afraid you would lose more than you would gain through the loss of volunteers. That is just not something I am ready to give up yet," he said.
"I would say a county like Highland would be hard-pressed to come to that point. I have seen us manage year after year," Klein said.
Hall is hopeful Bath will not have to turn to paid personnel. "I hope not, but we may end up having to do that very thing. The county is spread so far, 540 square miles and only 4,600-4,700 people, that you can't put them (paid) at only one station," he said.
Damewood said he has no idea how Bath and Highland would afford paid personnel, and hopes having them will not become necessary. He noted if counties were forced to pay personnel, they would have to start billing for services.
"Having paid personnel cuts down on response time, but it can be detrimental to the public, particularly those on fixed incomes, because billing goes along with that," Wimer explained.
Sullenberger said a paid rescue squad would be difficult for Highland because of the county's limited resources. "We rely on real estate taxes for revenue, and could not easily afford to have to pay people," he said.
He said one option could be consolidation of services with other areas, although Highland's remote, rural location makes that difficult as well.
"Even if you decide to hire someone, there is a lack of providers out there," Henry said. "It's not that easy to just go out and hire somebody, and then who pays for it? It takes two people to legally make up a crew, so that could get expensive quickly."
Spurgeon said in his personal opinion, at some point Bath will have to turn to paid personnel. However, he, too, is hopeful it will not happen. "Once you bring paid people in during the day to sit and wait for calls, many times when you ask volunteers to go out at night they won't do it. I see a lot of drawbacks to having paid people," he said.
McLaughlin said paid personnel have been discussed for some time, and he believes it may eventually come to that. "I don't see how Bath and Highland could really afford it. I don't think they can afford to pay three or four crews," he said.
Possible solutions
Without turning to paid personnel, options appear to be limited. There were, however, some ideas presented.
Hall said discussions have been held with the Bath County School Board about offering classes in the high school to get young people involved. "Hopefully these students could start with the rescue squads as junior members and if they stayed here could be trained. If they don't stay here, there are great job opportunities in emergency medical services," he said.
"There is no easy solution," Sullenberger added. "This is certainly an issue we are aware of and have to think about. We are trying to come up with potential solutions for some time, but this is not something that is easy to address. We will have to put a lot more time into it."
Henry said Hall and the other Bath supervisors have been receptive to the needs of the volunteers and have been willing to sit down and see what could be done. She suggested perhaps some type of incentive program to help with expenses going back and forth to calls would help.
"Right now, it's a tough situation and there is definitely no simple solution. We have to just keep struggling along and see what we can come up with," McLaughlin said.
Spurgeon said if a person does not have the time to take the training necessary for EMT certification, they are welcome to become trained as a driver and help in that way. "Anybody that is interested and is willing and able, after we do the background checks and verify everything the law requires us to, we would love to put 'em to work somewhere," he said.
If they do, Spurgeon said, he believes they will take great pleasure in helping others.
"This is the best job I have ever had, helping folks out. It doesn't matter who they are, when you help the community out, it's the best feeling in the world. God has been good to us, and we should give something back. Anyone who is interested and maybe can't go through the EMT class could go through the first responder class," he said.
Whatever the solutions may be, Seabolt knows some tough choices lie ahead for area officials regarding emergency medical services.
"It is getting close to the time where we will have to make some decisions. I can bring the data and hope it helps someone in the decision-making process. Right now, the calls are getting answered. We're going to try to make it for a while," he said. How to get involved Anyone interested in volu with their local fire department or rescue squad can contact the organization in their area at the following numbers:
Bath County
n Bath/Highland
V olun
De p
925-2377
n Burnsville Volunteer
Fire Department -
925-2411
n Bu
First Responders -
925-2466
n Hot Springs Fire
Department & Rescue
Squad - 839-2100
n Millboro Area Rescue
Squad - 997-9358
n Millboro Volunteer
Fire Department -
997-5846
n Mountain Grove
V olun
De par
First Responders -
279-4265
Highland County
n Bolar Volunteer
Fire Department -
468-2644
n Highland County
Rescue Squad -
468-2295
n Highland County
V olun
De p
468-2484
n Highland County
V olun
Department, Blue
Grass substation -
474-2484
n
V olun
De p
396-3445
| 
