Next month a new ambulance company will begin servicing the City of San Diego. The company was awarded the contract last year but recently, there have been concerns about long response times and understaffing in other cities they serve.
San Diego’s fire chief was involved in selecting this company. News 8's LaMonica Peters spoke to him about some of the issues and what this could mean for San Diego.
The chief said it’s not just Falck that has response time issues. It’s a statewide problem and unless hospitals can clear up some of the patient backlog, this problem isn’t going away.
San Diego Fire Chief Colin Stowell said over a dozen ambulance services across the state are having longer response times but it’s not really their fault. Because of the pandemic, he says an ambulance can sometimes wait over an hour to admit someone to the hospital.
“The ambulances are stacked up at the emergency rooms and can’t get their patients off their gurneys onto the hospital beds so they can go back into service,” said Chief Colin Stowell, with the San Diego Fire-Rescue Dept.
Stowell said when Falck officially begins servicing San Diego, they’re contractually obligated to provide about 1,000 staffing hours a day, which is 200 more hours than they have now with the current ambulance service, AMR.
Falck also issued a statement, saying in part:
“Despite the healthcare labor shortage in California and across the U.S., we have made excellent progress in hiring EMTs and paramedics in San Diego and have nearly reached our staffing goals. We are working closely every day with the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, and we are on track to take over 9-1-1 emergency ambulance service in San Diego on November 27.”
“They are getting some positive results out of their recruitment but are they going to be able to meet those numbers? I think we’re going to have to wait until November to really evaluate that and see,” Stowell said.
In the meantime, Stowell says despite the longer response times with ambulances, people should know that if they call 9-1-1, it’s the fire department who will be there first to get them some help.
“First of all, you will get somebody at your front door because the fire fighters are still going to be there. We have paramedics on every fire engine out there in the city and so those people are still going to get treated,” Stowell said.
Stowell also said the city and fire department will continue working with hospitals to try and find a solution so that ambulance companies can improve their response times.
WATCH RELATED: Health care workers' termination underway as deadline to be vaccinated arrives