Ambulance service ends
BY STEVE BIGHAM
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
SOUTHBURY — Residents in Heritage Village say they feel a little more vulnerable because of extra-long response times for ambulance service since Heritage Village Ambulance Association discontinued operations earlier this year.
The association ended its 52-year tradition of providing basic-life support service to the more than 5,000 people who live in the retirement community, citing rising costs, changes in insurance, and a shortage of volunteers that made staying in business all-but impossible.
Since then, coverage for all Heritage Village EMS calls — about 1,100 per year — has been transferred to Southbury Volunteer Ambulance Association.
The added responsibility is expected to raise its total number of calls townwide this year to as many as 4,000, an increase of about 25%.
Southbury Ambulance in its efforts to maintain the same level of coverage now stations an ambulance at the Village, although not to the same frequency as when it was manned by the Heritage Village crew.
Heritage Village resident See AMBULANCE , Page 5A
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John Diehl this week expressed villagers’ concerns to the Board of Selectmen, noting that he has heard stories from residents who, when calling 911, are told the wait times are a half an hour or more.
“Sometimes they are told Southbury Ambulance is unavailable, so the closest ambulance has to come in from out of town,” Diehl said.
Southbury Ambulance President Geralyn Hoyt said there are always going to be a few “outlier” calls where Southbury is required to call on mutual aid from other towns or commercial ambulance companies, about 8 to 10 % of the time, but said the organization is doing whatever it can to provide Heritage Village with the same level of service its has long come to expect.
Heritage Village Ambulance had been responding to as many as 1,500 calls per year when it handed the reigns over to Southbury Ambulance May 1.
“It’s fair to say that it’s a work in process. We have made every attempt to match the same staffing as has always been provided at Heritage Village, and the entire town,” Hoyt said. “But you have to remember that we are doing 4,000 calls a year, and you may have 10 instances where mutual aid is called, and people aren’t happy because they don’t have an ambulance four minutes down the road because all the ambulances are on other calls.”
Hoyt said it is a sign of the times nationwide where there simply are not enough EMS volunteers, particularly since COVID when 60 % of all EMS certificates across the state were not renewed.
Hoyt said she often has to rely on paid EMS staffing when unable to find enough volunteers to serve a particular shift.
Southbury Ambulance has been providing medic or advanced life support service to all of Southbury since 2019.
In addition to Heritage Village, it has also assumed responsibility for the former Southbury Training School campus after the State of Connecticut discontinued its own ambulance service there a few years ago.
Hoyt said Southbury Ambulance had always provided mutual aid to Heritage Village and vice versa. Now, she said, that more-localized mutual aid is no longer available.
Heritage Village Ambulance operated a private, nonprofit entity with no official connection to the Heritage Village Association itself.
It was established in 1971, shortly after construction of the 2,500-unit complex was completed.
Heritage Village Ambulance President George Goodwin headed the organization for many years and said he was sorry to see it discontinue. But added that the “economies of scale” in passing service to Southbury Ambulance made sense.
Goodwin said the arrival of Heritage Village Ambulance came around the same time as the state began creating primary service areas for ambulance coverage.
Before that, he said, there were often commercial ambulance companies driving around with scanners, then rushing to the scene of an accident, often resulting multiple ambulances all converging on the same call.
“It was like the Wild West,” Goodwin said.
That first year, Heritage Village Ambulance had 60 members. Those numbers have since dwindled significantly, leaving the association with little choice but to disband.
Goodwin said a handful of the Heritage Village volunteers have since joined Southbury Ambulance.
Goodwin said Heritage Village always operated just one ambulance, its most recent vehicle having since been transferred to Southbury Ambulance. The vehicle has been repainted with a new sign, per state law, but it still makes reference to the memory of Heritage Village Ambulance.
Diehl said his hope is that the Town of Southbury continues to provide adequate supplemental funding to Southbury Ambulance — in addition to its own fundraising efforts — to ensure help always arrives on time.
Heritage Village Ambulance discontinued operations after 52 years earlier this year.
CONTRIBUTED/ HERITAGE VILLAGE AMBULANCE
