Multnomah County Chair to Address Delayed Ambulance Times
Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Peterson says she’ll explain her plan to address delayed ambulance response times. This comes as a Portland city Commissioner is introducing a resolution urging the Multnomah County Chair to address an ambulance staffing crisis. Commissioner Renee Gonzalez is calling on Vega Peterson to change the county’s policy.
It currently requires two paramedics per ambulance. But the change would allow one paramedic and one EMT. EMTs have less training than paramedics, but the county’s ambulance provider says without this change response times will get worse. Rob McDonald’s the operations manager at AMR.
He says, “What that means is if the call triage is to a lower acuity call, we can primarily dispatch that EMT EMT unit to the call and hold our advanced life support resources, our paramedic paramedic for the higher criticality calls.”
Back in August the county said it would fine the ambulance provider for slow and no response times.
People testified that AMR was not meeting the response time requirements for several months. Their contract does require the enforcement of damages or penalties.
