WESTMINSTER : City’s Paramedic Services to Increase

The city soon will be able to provide full paramedic services at each of its three fire stations, according to Fire Chief John T. DeMonaco Jr.

DeMonaco said that beginning Jan. 26, four-man paramedic crews will be assigned to each station, including Station 3 at 6061 Hefley St., where paramedic service for residents in the west part of city has long been a concern.

DeMonaco said Tuesday that the increased service is possible because the city will begin operating its own ambulance service next month.

“We’ll now have the ability to respond to our internal needs without going to Central Net (a regional dispatching network) or requesting paramedics from nearby cities,” DeMonaco said.

The City Council approved a plan to assign paramedics to the fire stations in November as part of the reorganization of the fire department.

But the plan was delayed until the city was able to set up its own ambulance service, according to Capt. Craig Campbell, the Fire Department’s training officer.

Campbell said that when paramedics transported patients to hospitals, “we left a big area of the city uncovered, and we could not respond readily when there was another emergency.”

Under the new program, a city ambulance will accompany responding paramedics, who will ride in a fire engine, in emergencies. One of the paramedics then will ride in the ambulance to the hospital while the fire engine returns to the fire station.

That way, the fire engine can respond to another emergency, Campbell said.

The city’s paramedic services are an emotional issue. Many residents view the services as inadequate, which is among reasons that an effort is being made to recall Mayor Charles V. Smith and council members Craig Schweisinger, Charmayne S. Bohman and Tony Lam.

Recall proponents say the council endangered public safety by laying off five firefighters in October as part of a Fire Department reorganization.

But officials argue that the city is now able to provide paramedic services at all fire stations because of the reorganization.

DeMonaco said that the city has 18 paramedics, and that six firefighters will go to paramedic school in July. He said the plan is to have three paramedics in the four-person crews at each station.

Campbell said that city interviews of ambulance driver applicants were completed Tuesday.

Superior Ambulance, which won the city contract to provide the drivers, provided a pool of 75 applicants, all certified emergency medical technicians. From these the city will choose 18, who will have to take some additional training.

After a two-week course in Huntington Beach, 12 will be hired as ambulance drivers and the remaining six will be placed in a pool for future hiring, Campbell said.