Ogdensburg council silent on North Star's ambulance pitch

Oct. 16—OGDENSBURG — North Star Health Alliance made its pitch to City Council to back its proposal to begin an ambulance service for inter-facility patient transfers.

And City Council was not moved Tuesday night.

In September, North Star Health Alliance announced that it would move forward with its own ambulance service with a goal of commencing operations by Jan. 1, 2025. North Star has sought a certificate of need from the state Department of Health which has drawn opposition from rescue squads and ambulance services in the tri-county area.

"Realistically, our commitment for the ambulance service is really to provide a dedicated ambulance service to increase the access to patient care to a higher level of service," said Dominic Doldo, vice president of Emergency Services and Security at North Star Health Alliance, who presented the proposal to City Council.

Their intention is to geographically restrict themselves to only provide inter-facility transfers with the ambulances.

"We cannot expand outside of those areas and provide ambulance services unless we are requested through county-wide mutual aid. So there is not any real hostile takeover of EMS in any county by geographically restricting ourselves for that," he said.

The proposal would reduce the wait times for patients at each of its sites at North Star Health Alliance by having an ambulance at Carthage Area Hospital and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center. A third ambulance would be in reserve, according to Doldo.

Four full-time paramedics and four EMTs would be hired at each location with a "strong" pool of per diem or part-time staff at both locations.

With only three ambulances, Doldo explained that they would still need to rely on area rescue squads and fire departments with inter-facility transfers. It's North Star Health Alliance's intention to work with rescue squads and fire departments over the long-term, according to Doldo.

"We still will have to rely on those agencies to assist us with transports because one ambulance is not enough at each location to do 100% of our transports. So they will still have some of the business from both of our facilities," said Doldo.

In public appearances, Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad EMS Chief Kenneth Gardner once again asked City Council not to support the ambulance service proposal.

Later in the meeting, when Deputy Mayor Daniel Skamperle asked council if they were interested in drafting a resolution of support, there was silence and discussion was moved to a different topic.