SAN DIEGO — Concern over staffing issues and response times continue regarding the city’s new ambulance provider.
During a meeting Wednesday, San Diego Fire-Rescue provided the Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee an update on the performance of Falck.
"My concern, and I think you share it, is if they are in fact doing everything that's within reason and possible to improve staffing for the last eight months, then this might be the best we can expect to see, and were going to continue to fall short of contractual obligations," said Chief Colin Stowell to the committee members.
"If that’s the case, I think the next question to you and to the entire city council is how tolerant and patient will the city be while this contract falls short of what we hoped for and should demand?" he said.
He said ambulance unit hours are still falling short.
"We take full responsibility for our contract and are committed to reaching these commitments. Admittedly meeting these goals has been harder than we anticipated due to COVID surges and related to the lack of paramedic availability," said Falck Managing Director Jeff Behm.
Behm acknowledged the company is still not meeting the 1008 staffing hours per day that it promised, but said they're doing their best to improve.
According to a March letter from the city to Falck, the city identified over 80 items where Falck had failed to meet contractual obligations. Chief among them were instances where the new ambulance provider failed to meet minimum response times for at least 90 percent of calls. Since November, the city reported that Falck had failed to even respond to 54 calls.
Those issues, as well as others, resulted in Falck racking up about $2.5 million dollars in fines for failing to meet their contractual obligations. The company has blamed a lot of the issues they've had on the pandemic. The city waived nearly $2 million in penalties and agreed the company would only have to pay about half a million.
Managing Director Behm said the company is turning it around and in April they met all response time requirements.
"I am disappointed we’re not getting promises we were told we were going to get," said Council Member Marni Van Wilpert. "The reason that Falck got this contract is because they said they were going to do more than AMR and it’s now May and we’re not there yet."
"I am looking at Falck to live up to its obligations," said Council Member Raul Campillo. "We had many people calling in when this contract was approved saying '[Falck] is making promises they can’t keep' and I’m sad to say many of those callers are absolutely right at this point."
Chief Stowell told the committee he has received permission to hire a consultant to devise a plan just in case his department needs to take over.
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