Fire Officials Seek Own Ambulance Service : Ventura: Quicker response times and about $1 million in new revenue are predicted. The city will consider the plan next week.

With the lure of $1 million in new revenue and faster service to emergency situations, Ventura fire officials are recommending that the City Council allow them to operate their own ambulance service.

Under a plan to be considered Monday, Ventura would begin operating its own paramedic service next July.

The city, along with Ventura County and three other cities, now contracts with CareLine California to provide advanced life support to patients in emergencies.

But firefighters, who under the contract can only offer basic life support to patients in need, complain that they arrive at emergencies sooner than the private paramedics four times out of five.

“It would enhance a patient’s survivability, and even their quality of life,” said David Hilty, president of the Ventura City Firefighters Assn.

The proposal recommended by Fire Chief Dennis J. Downs calls for the city to staff its own ambulances with a combination of firefighters trained in emergency services and four contract paramedics.

Downs said using contract paramedics in conjunction with 19 firefighters would keep upfront costs at a minimum and create a pool of specialists for future vacancies.

It would also allow the program to be dismantled more easily if the city later decides to cancel it, he said.

Budget analysts say the mix of firefighters and contract paramedics would generate more than $1 million in extra revenue for the city over the first five years.

Staffing all of the ambulances with city firefighters would cost about $920,000 more than the $6.5 million the program would generate over the first five years, the feasibility study concluded.

Last May, council members put Ventura County and the other cities now operating under the CareLine California agreement on alert that it was considering running its own ambulance service after June 30, 1996.

At the public hearing two months ago, a number of residents spoke in favor of the change, including one woman who credited the Ventura Fire Department with saving her husband’s life.

But CareLine executives are not convinced the council will choose to undertake the responsibility of administering its own ambulance system.

“We’ve been working with the city to try to put together a public and private arrangement that would minimize the city’s risk and minimize the cost to taxpayers,” said Steve Murphy, a CareLine vice president.

“When’s the last time government was able to be the provider of services more efficiently than the private sector?” Murphy asked.

Downs said he would need about $572,000 in start-up money to get the service going. But that money would be recovered by billing patients for the ambulance service, he said.

The change also would save patients money, Downs said. CareLine charges $547 for its average service call, while the fire chief estimates the average city cost at $467, nearly 15% less.

Fire officials also cite a quicker response time as a benefit of operating their own paramedic service.

The city maintains a goal of arriving at an emergency within six minutes 90% of the time, while CareLine sets a standard of arriving within 10 minutes at nine out of 10 medical scenes.

“We’d have local control and a 40% improvement in response,” Hilty said.

Council members are expected to approve one of three alternatives proposed by Downs. Most say the Fire Department deserves a chance to show it can do the job more efficiently and at a reduced cost.

“This is something I’ve been pushing for since 1977,” Councilman Jim Monahan said. “It was one of my first campaign promises. We are looking for the best level of service we can provide at the lowest cost to the citizens of Ventura.”

If approved, Ventura would become the only public agency operating an ambulance service in the county, a fact that is not lost on the union chief.

“Most larger jurisdictions have their own paramedics,” Hilty said. “We’d be real proud to be the first one in Ventura County.”