Service Pact Extended for City Firefighter-Paramedics

City firefighter-paramedics will continue to answer medical aid calls for the next 90 days under an agreement approved Monday night by the Ventura City Council.

The council also pledged to work out a long-term arrangement with the private ambulance company American Medical Response, which has a contract to serve the city, once the 90-day plan expires.

Monday’s vote allows city firefighters trained as paramedics to perform lifesaving measures such as CPR on patients before an American Medical Response ambulance arrives.

Under the agreement, the private ambulance company will pay the city $10,000 monthly to cover the cost of 13 firefighter-paramedics operating on four city fire engines.

The agreement was forged to cut response times to calls for medical aid. The effort focuses on firefighters because they usually are the first to arrive at the scene of an emergency.

Although a city-run ambulance service managed to reduce emergency response times by 40%, Ventura was forced to drop the service after a year last summer when the Board of Supervisors, fearing a lawsuit, awarded the contract for ambulance service in the city to American Medical Response.

The supervisors’ decision followed a state Supreme Court ruling that said counties, not cities, should decide who provides pre-hospital emergency services.

Soon after the board’s vote, Ventura and the ambulance company signed a short-term agreement allowing paramedics on firetrucks, an arrangement renewed for the next 90 days with Monday’s vote. City officials say negotiations on a long-term agreement with AMR should be complete by the end of April.