Ambulance Company to Add 3 Stations : Emergency services: Facilities in Oak Park, Newbury Park and western Ventura will improve response times, Pruner officials say.

Ventura County’s largest private ambulance service is adding three new stations and relocating another, moves that could cut response times in half in some areas, officials at Pruner Ambulance Services said Thursday.

The action follows repeated requests from the Board of Supervisors to improve ambulance response time in underserved areas of the county, particularly Oak Park. The new Oak Park station is a result of the supervisors’ requests, said Don Pruner, the company’s president.

Pruner’s firm holds an exclusive franchise to provide ambulance service to all areas of the county except Oxnard and Ojai, which use different companies. Passengers are charged for ambulance trips.

Even as Pruner expands, county officials are considering going into the ambulance business themselves.

Supervisor Maria VanderKolk will ask the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to approve a study on the economic feasibility of the county fire district operating its own ambulances and training firefighters as paramedics, County Fire Chief George E. Lund said.

Pruner said he is not worried.

“We’ve been trying to do that for two years, to get them to do a study on it and put this thing to bed,” he said. Pruner maintained that the county would lose money trying to run its own ambulance service.

In addition to Oak Park, Pruner’s new stations are in Newbury Park and the west end of Ventura. Although the stations will provide better geographical coverage, most will use equipment currently at other stations rather than new ambulances. Only one additional ambulance will be acquired.

The new station in Newbury Park--at Ventu Park Road and Hillcrest Drive--will open within two weeks, said Steve Murphy, Pruner’s chief administrator. The Newbury Park station will have an ambulance only during the peak hours of 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Murphy said.

The Oak Park station, expected to open about Aug. 1, will house an ambulance now at the Thousand Oaks station, leaving the older station with one ambulance. Pruner said he is still talking to the county about parking the relocated Oak Park ambulance in the Oak Park Fire Station rather than renting space to open a station in a commercial district.

A new station in west Ventura will house an ambulance now at the central Ventura station, leaving the existing facility with one vehicle, Murphy said. A station near Leisure Village, on the western end of Camarillo, opened last Friday, replacing a station in the city’s center, he said.

The new and relocated stations will cut response times, Pruner said. For example, in Oak Park and Newbury Park, the current 10-minute average response time will be cut in half.

Pruner’s expansion and the county’s feasibility study are the latest chapters in a longstanding dispute involving the county, the firefighters and Pruner.

Pruner officials have repeatedly requested permission to house ambulances in fire stations. Don Pruner said such a move would put ambulances in residential areas where they are needed and could prove cheaper than renting commercial space.

The county firefighters union has opposed the idea. They have cited security concerns and fears that the ambulance workers and firefighters would get in each other’s way, Lund said.

Instead, the union has asked the county to run its own ambulance service, staffing it with firefighters trained as paramedics. Paramedics can earn 15-18% more than those firefighters who lack the specialized training, Chief Lund said.

Meanwhile, the supervisors have been besieged by angry residents demanding improved response time from whoever provides ambulance service.

In response, the supervisors have held hearings, studied other options and asked Pruner to open more stations.

Lund said the request for the new study arose out of fiscal necessity. With the fire district facing cuts in its operating budget for the coming year, profits from an ambulance service could help make up some of the shortfall, he said. The district would have to acquire its own ambulances as well as train paramedics, Lund said.

“We would still bill for services, as the privates do, but we hope we could do it less expensively,” he said. “If we can’t do it cheaper, then there shouldn’t be a change.”

Lund calculated that the district would spend at least $1 million to establish an ambulance service. He said he hoped the service would bring in $2 million or $3 million in profits each year, but that finances still needed to be worked out.