From The Intelligencer: BENWOOD – The new paid ambulance service for Benwood and McMechen residents is already seeing improved response times to calls for service, officials said Wednesday.
The city of Benwood recently entered into an agreement with the McMechen Volunteer Fire Department to start a paid ambulance service. This means the EMTs are now paid employees working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily to provide emergency medical services and transport to residents of both cities.
“The response time went from 8-to-12 minutes to 2-to-3 minutes, which is a great benefit for residents in need of medical service,” said Dave McLaughlin, director of Operations for Benwood.
He noted the new service has been in place for about a month. Benwood and the McMechen VFD began working on an agreement for the service about a year ago.
“It’s money spent well to provide emergency care for the citizens,” he said. “Benwood hasn’t had its own service for 20 years. We’ve been counting on McMechen for years. Now we feel confident in the service that is dedicated to our community and their community also.”
The city of Benwood and the McMechen VFD both are contributing $74,000 each and the Marshall County Commission is anticipated to give another $66,000 to get the service started.
McLaughlin said they are hoping that, in the future, the service will become self-sufficient, or at least cost less to operate after service billings.
McMechen VFD Chief John Davis said they decided on a 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. paid service, as about 93% of all the calls for service happened during that time.
“In the past 15 years we have doubled the call volume. We have 600 calls between fire and EMS, with most being EMS,” he said.
Davis said most of the calls are basic medical issues, but there are also trauma related calls due to both cities’ proximity to W.Va. 2. The service is also backup for the Marshall County EMS service.
Davis said they are looking to hire another four to five part-time certified EMS drivers, EMTs and paramedics. For more information, visit the McMechen VFD Facebook page.
Benwood Police Department Chief Frank Longwell said he is happy to have the service available to residents. In the past with just volunteers, there were times when people would have to wait for 25 minutes for service, he said.
Longwell noted it is difficult for many small communities to find enough volunteers as many people can’t not get the time off to do so or cannot afford the extensive training and related costs.
“You almost have to go paid,” he said.
“I’m glad the city of Benwood has the funds to participate in this. Hopefully it will work out well. We have an aging community, people who worked in steel mills and coal mines. Every community is losing population and has left behind seniors and the elderly who need more and more EMS. This is a great thing that definitely benefits both communities.”
When the paid EMTs are not on a call they will also be out participating in community events doing activities such as providing free blood pressure screenings.