A former top lawmaker and fire chiefs from several towns outside Bangor are considering a proposed regional approach to ambulance services that is seen as a way out of a financial crisis that has threatened to leave callers waiting longer for assistance.
Former Maine House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport, who is running unopposed in November for his old seat, met Wednesday with fire chiefs from the towns of Corinna, Dixmont, Etna and Newport to discuss dwindling access to ambulance services. A state report this year found the state’s rural ambulance service “at the edge” of a financial cliff — or over it.
The idea came after Fredette attended last month’s ribbon cutting for a new fire station in Corinna. It happened around the same time that towns in the area received a notice from Northern Light Health of a plan to charge them $17 per resident for emergency services the hospital previously paid them to provide.
In response, Fredette plans to introduce a first-of-its-kind ambulance regionalization plan for the area when he returns to the State House. The effort is remarkable in part because similar past efforts to get towns to work together more have been difficult here, as evidenced by a 2007 school merger law that initially penalized districts for not consolidating.
“I think everybody, particularly in rural Maine, recognizes regionalization is the answer,” Fredette said.
A study released last year by Maine Rural Health Research Center found 15 of Maine’s 16 counties have so-called ambulance deserts, where people are located more than 25 minutes from an ambulance station. Maine was ranked as the second-worst ambulance desert state in the Northeast behind Vermont.
While fire chiefs said they appreciate Fredette’s idea, Newport Fire Chief Jeff Chretien said more education and discussions among towns about how the “dam’s about to break” should come first, along with an acknowledgement that regionalization could cost more than Northern Light’s new charge.
“Anytime you want to start talking regionalization with schools, fire departments or anything, it’s a nasty fight if you want to get anywhere,” Chretien, who has led Newport’s fire department for about a dozen years, said Friday. “Those are hard battles that usually go nowhere, in my experience.”
Dixmont Fire Chief Ryan Hopkins said his volunteer department relies on Northern Light’s ambulance out of Bangor. If it is not available, it looks to nearby Carmel for assistance. Regionalization would have to reckon with long-running staffing issues, Hopkins added.
“Everybody’s just so short staffed,” Hopkins said. “Everybody’s hurting for people.”
Newport, with about 3,100 residents, has used its own municipal ambulance service for about three years, with a roughly $700,000 annual operating budget, the fire chief said. Various other Maine towns have also sought to reduce their dependence on private firms.
Fredette said an ambulance regionalization plan would look at the creation of an oversight board and a taxing authority to ensure “this type of service has longevity.” Voters in local communities would ultimately decide if they want a regional ambulance service, he added.
Sen. Chip Curry, D-Belfast, who co-chaired the blue ribbon commission on ambulance services, agreed more education and planning among towns on EMS services is needed first.
“Towns are very different,” Curry said. “The challenges are very similar, but they’re not the same.”
House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, who is running for a state Senate seat in November, was the other co-chair of the blue ribbon commission alongside Curry. She said in a statement Friday that lagging reimbursement rates, challenges with recruitment and retention, an aging population and other issues have made things difficult for providers.
In response to Fredette’s idea, Talbot Ross said she and her colleagues “welcome all ideas, including regionalization, to make sure Mainers have access to this life-saving care.”
Northern Light Health has faced financial instability caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it said it could no longer afford to continue its years-long practice of paying the towns to provide emergency medical services before a health care system ambulance system arrives.
Newport previously helped Northern Light operate an ambulance serving the town after seeing “the writing on the wall years ago” on financial struggles, Chretien said, adding the crisis “has been slowly building.”
“But now it’s to the point that it can’t be ignored anymore,” he said.
