Saving Privatized Ryan (brothers)

The Village of Cottage Grove is at it again. They seem to be working very hard to lower the quality of life for all of the citizens in the Village(and unfortunately have been very successful the last two years plus). This time they have some accomplices – the town of Cottage Grove and the municipalities of Deerfield. We combine with the latter municipalities to supply our Emergency Medical Services. Now they are discussing rather to end this collaboration and privatize these services. The Board and Commissions in Cottage Grove have a history of approving things without doing research or asking questions.

The Deer Grove EMS Commission met Wednesday, June 29, to discuss proposals to serve the current EMS district from private ambulance services.

Mike DuPlayee, chairperson of the commission, said the only reason the communities are looking at private EMS services is to explore the possibility of reducing costs.

“During my personal research, there have not been any issues with the staff of Deer Grove EMS. The staff is very courteous and very professional,” DuPlayee said. “The issue is the cost of the service provided. That is why we are looking at it through this process. It is strictly budgets.”

Without getting into the fact that privatization is not answerable or accountable to the people and their sole goal is to make PROFIT, or that in many(if not all) privatizing government services ends up costing the taxpayers more in the end for lower quality. I will specifically address EMS here.

* First off there is this study done in the city of Markham, IL: EMS Privatization: Where the Customer Comes Second!

The move to privatization was done for all the right reasons: saving money, allowing firefighters
to concentrate on providing fire-related services, and improving the level of EMS in the city. But
somehow the needs and wants of the customer were lost in the shuffle. No one asked how this change
would affect the EMS patient. No one asked what patient or customer concerns the change should
address. No one asked what was important to the person lying on the cot, or to the family as they
watched the ambulance leave with their loved one. The EMS customers’ needs and wants were lost
during the change process.

* The city of Greeley, CO is considering the same thing, to much public pushback. The difference there is they have actually solicited public comments:

One regional EMS official observing the situation said he hopes Greeley officials don’t choose the least-expensive service they can find just to save money.

“(WCPS has) provided a high-quality service for decades,” he said. “This race to the bottom to get the lowest cost of service could find Greeley residents getting just what they pay for.”

* In Lakewood NJ, they tried to privatize their EMS and a packed house at the local meeting to protest the privatization(four videos at this link),.

* Finally there is this fact sheet from the Mount Vernon, IL fire department:

Unlike private contractors and other single-role providers, fire departments have the flexibility to provide prehospital emergency medical care by utilizing fire apparatus staffed with cross-trained/dual-role fire fighter emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics. Fire-based systems can maintain the shortest possible response times while avoiding duplication of services by cross training employees t function effectively in fire suppression, rescue, and EMS. Fire departments can deploy emergency response units in superior numbers from strategic locations than single-role private providers can while maintaining their profits.
Third party payers, such as private health insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid, only underwrite the portion of prehospital emergency medical care associated with transporting a patient to the hospital. Private contractors, therefore, attempt to maximize profit by transporting a maximum number of patients with as few ambulances as possible. Efforts by private EMS corporations to maximize productive time for ambulances could result in a decreased level of service to the community.

As anyone who went to Grad School knows, a big teaching tool is case studies. In this era of cutting budgets and perpetually lowering taxes(our taxes now are at the lowest level since 1950), There are two cases studies I will point to that show what happens in republican cut taxes America.

Case #1: A Fire Department lets a house burn down over $75.

Case #2: Local police and fire departments watch man drown.

While I have never had to be transported in an Ambulance, and pray that I never have to be, if I do(or if you do), I hope that quality of care is all that is on the EMS minds, and NOT profit!

Unfortunately(although not surprising), there has not been a call for public input, but please offer yours up to the following people:

Cottage Grove Village President Diane Wiedenbeck and EMS Commission Chair(and town board member) Mike DuPlayee.

PS: Thank you to Paula Severson for clarifying. that the Town of Deerfield initiated the discussion and the Town of Cottage Grove board member Mike DuPlayee put this item on the agenda. This “idea” did not originate within the Village of Cottage Grove, however, using past precedence and ideology I do not see the current village board voting against this. I will follow up as we move along.