CATSKILL — Greene County is taking action to attract candidates to take Emergency Medical Technician training to serve as first responders.
At the Greene County Legislature meeting on Wednesday night, the board unanimously approved a resolution to fund a new initiative that would pay the $800 EMT training fee for any candidate willing to take the course and commit to serve as an EMT for at least 18 months in the county upon its completion.
The Legislature authorized the county to train up to 10 individuals at a cost of no more than $8,000, which would be paid to the Greene County Emergency Medical Services Council in Cairo, the group that will conduct the training.
The county is hoping to address a shortage in EMTs that municipalities across Greene County have experienced in their EMT units.
“Every agency in the county is short on EMTs,” Greene County Legislature Chairman Patrick Linger, R-New Baltimore, said Thursday. “Where we used to have between 15 and 25 students per class, we’re being told now that the number has been cut dramatically, with sometimes as little as seven or eight students.”
“One of the things that has changed from the state side is the reimbursement on the cost of that class used to be paid for and now it’s not,” Linger said. “So it’s an $800 expense to a student who wants to take that class. So our thought process here is if for $800 per student we can get another EMT onboard, or five or 10 more onboard, that’s a benefit for the entire county.”
Under the terms of the resolution passed Wednesday, if the agreement is successful in attracting more individuals to get trained as EMTs then the county may extend the contract with the Greene County EMS Council to train additional candidates.
“We’re having recruitment issues with the industry in general,” Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden said. “They’ve gone from a large proportion of volunteers. But as volunteerism, whether in firefighting or EMT services goes down, we’ve got to attract people back in. That would result in local job creation and it would support the variety of the services we offer in the county. It always comes back to when you don’t have a hospital in your county, you better have a good ambulance system.”
During a presentation to the legislature in December, Greene County Emergency Medical Services Coordinator Sean Hotaling informed the board that the staffing levels for EMT squads in the county were approaching a crisis level that needed to be addressed.
Greene does not have a countywide EMS system, as each municipality is in charge of its own team of first responders.
The county also has a contract with Greene EMS to provide paramedic fly-car service throughout the county.
“We had heard in previous meetings that higher costs for the training, and the hours required by the state have been a discouragement for many people,” Greene County Legislator Michael Bulich, R-Catskill, said. “We’re hopeful that this alleviates some of that and it entices people to go forward and become trained and be able to volunteer and then be paid also.”
“That’s the hope. We’re not sure it’s going to happen, because our population has dropped significantly over the years in Greene, Columbia and other upstate counties,” Bulich said. “So we don’t have the new blood coming into the job positions coming out of high school. So it’s a tremendous concern.”