After a slight hiccough over the holidays, LifeCare EMS and Newton County first responders are starting the new year off on solid footing.
In a regular meeting of the Newton County Board of Supervisors Monday, E911 Director Brian Taylor said LifeCare has worked hard to fill vacancies and address issues brought up by the county.
“LifeCare has gone above and beyond to get paramedics in here,” he said.
Of course, solutions don’t happen overnight, Taylor said, and LifeCare is still short staffed on some shifts. However, he said he was impressed by the effort the ambulance service was making to fill staffing vacancies and cover all shifts.
“If it had be anyone but LifeCare, they probably would have the same problems,” he said.
While LifeCare’s parent company, PatientCare Logistics Solutions, works to hire more paramedics, Matt Putnam, a paramedic with LifeCare, said current paramedics are working to make sure all calls are answered as quickly as possible.
With that in mind, Putnam asked the board to consider a slight change in ambulance staging to allow paramedics to get some more sleep.
“I’d like to let them stay in their beds and sleep instead of coming back to the center of the county,” he said.
Currently, Putman said, between the hours of 10 p.m. – 7 a.m., ambulances park in Decatur, the center of the county, to allow the fastest response time to the next call. However, he said, sometimes that means driving back from Hickory or Newton only to be called back to the place they just left.
LifeCare maintains ambulance stations in Union, Decatur and Newton, Putnam said. Instead of driving all the way back to Decatur can take an extra 30 minutes, which paramedics could have otherwise been sleeping. On a 48- or 72-hour shift, he said, an extra 30 minutes sleep can do wonders for moral.
“We asked them to work with us,” Supervisor Joe Alexander said. “This’ll be a good show for the employees that we want to work with them.”
The board agreed with Putnam to go ahead with the rule change. However, both the board and Putnam made it clear, if the change results in ambulances taking longer to arrive, the policy would revert immediately, and ambulances would be required to come back to Decatur.
In other business, the Board of Supervisors
● Declared repairs on a Lawrence-Hazel Road bridge to be an emergency and approved Beat 4 Supervisor Charles Godwin making repairs. The estimated cost is $152,000.
● Approved advertising for lease-purchase options on a tractor for Beat 1. The tractor is available though state contract for $58,748.
●Approved rehiring all county employees for 2019, which is a formality required under Mississippi law.
●Appointed Supervisor Charles Godwin to replace Charles Moulds as board president for 2019
●Appointed Supervisor Glenn Hollingsworth to replace Charles Godwin as vice president of the board for 2019.
The board will not meet again until Feb. 4 at 10 a.m. The Jan. 18 meeting was canceled due to a scheduling conflict with the Mississippi Association of Supervisors conference.
