By Bayne Hughes
The Decatur Daily
DECATUR, Alabama – The Decatur City Council on Monday upheld its previous commitment not to impose additional penalties on Decatur Morgan Hospital’s emergency medical services for failing to meet the city’s response time standards.
The Council, by a vote of 2-1, with Councilman Carlton McMasters abstaining, rejected Decatur Morgan Hospital’s appeal of a $5,000 fine for failure to meet city policing requirements in the first quarter of 2024. Councilman Billy Jackson was absent.
The emergency services were fined because they only answered 82% of their calls in the police district within 13 minutes in the first three months of 2024.
Decatur Morgan Hospital EMS received a fine and a penalty for failure to meet response times
A city ordinance requires that EMS respond to at least 90 percent of calls in the police district within 13 minutes each quarter. The police district is an area 1 1/2 miles outside the city limits where the city provides police, fire and EMS protection while also enforcing building codes.
In June, the Ambulance Regulatory Board unanimously upheld the fine imposed by Chris Phillips, Decatur Fire & Rescue’s medical services coordinator, and approved a points penalty upon his recommendation.
The hospital appealed the fine and CEO Kelli Powers said Monday that she accepted the point deduction.
Powers and the hospital’s emergency services director, Tyler Stinson, tried unsuccessfully to get the council to grant the appeal. Stinson said the emergency services improved in the months that followed, so that they now meet required response times in the city and in PJ.
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“We have improved our response plan,” Stinson said of stationing ambulances at key locations in the city to improve response times.
Powers pointed out that at that time the ambulance service was “struggling with the same staffing problems as other emergency services.”
“We pay a lot of overtime and if you could help us with the $5,000 we would be grateful,” Powers said. “We kept all of our points. We just want to do the right thing and have all of our times since then.”
If 26 points are accumulated within two years, the EMS coordinator must recommend revoking the operating license of an emergency service. The city council ultimately makes this decision.
Stinson attributed some of the problems to the frigid weather during the quarter. He said they had an unusually high call volume in January.
This was the second time the hospital had appealed a fine since it began providing ambulance services in the city in 2021. The council upheld the hospital’s appeal after it was unable to attend its police precinct appointment in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Council President Jacob Ladner said at the time that he would not grant another appeal if the hospital’s emergency services failed again, and he kept his word on Monday, although he said Decatur Morgan Hospital was doing “extraordinary work.”
He said he had not received a single email with a complaint, although he used to receive complaints via email every day before an ambulance service was set up at the hospital.
“I hate to do this – maybe the regulation needs to be worked on a bit to make it easier for them – but we have a regulation that we have to follow,” Ladner said.
Ladner said if hospital management wants to change the ordinance, it will have to work with the Decatur Fire Department, the city’s law department and the ARB to make adjustments.
“Otherwise, it is what it is and we have to enforce it,” Ladner said.
Decatur Morgan Hospital EMS appeals second response time fine since service began in 2021
Councilman Kyle Pike voted with Ladner to deny the appeal. While he said he was also pleased with the hospital’s emergency services, he said the council needed to enforce its ordinance.
“When they were first appointed, they talked pretty openly about how we need to hold them to our standards, and the vote reflected that,” Pike said. “That’s not something I want to do.”
Pike said discussions between Decatur Fire & Rescue and the hospital are continuing “to figure out how they can improve their service and response times will reflect that.”
Councilman Hunter Pepper, who works for Jefferson County Emergency Services, was the only member of the council to vote to uphold the appeal.
He said the current staffing situation of the emergency services and the number of medical and non-medical calls should play a role in the final decision whether to penalise an ambulance service.
“There should be standards they have to follow, but certain situations should be taken into account when making the decision,” Pepper said.
Pepper said he had “difficulty imposing a fine” on the hospital “even though it is suffering enough without its employees.”
Ladner said the emergency services can ask the EMS coordinator for an exception to a call, but that did not happen in the first quarter.
Powers said she understood the council’s motivations as it had a regulation to uphold.
“We thought some of these happened during the ice storm and maybe they would forgive us,” Powers said. “We don’t make any money from the rescue service.”
Powers expects police response times in the jurisdiction to improve after the hospital’s emergency medical services expanded its coverage to include all of Morgan County in July.
“That means more trucks and more staff,” she said.
Stinson said his EMS department now has eight vehicles in the city during the day and four at night, and five vehicles in the county during the day and three at night. Each vehicle typically has one paramedic and one EMT, but occasionally two paramedics.
He said they are currently able to staff each truck as planned unless an employee is absent due to illness or personal reasons.
(c)2024 The Decatur Daily (Decatur, Alabama)
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