Southbury Ambulance Asks State to Dismiss Town’s Takeover Bid

Information via Southbury Ambulance Association via a release

SOUTHBURY, CT — Southbury Ambulance Association (SAA) filed a petition on October 2, with Connecticut’s Department of Public Health’s Office of Emergency Medical Services to dismiss the application by the Town of Southbury to assume emergency ambulance services currently being provided to the Southbury Training School.

In Tuesday’s filing (available here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ee0lxgyxpwce31d/SAA%20-%20Motion%20to%20Dismiss%202018-10-02%20to%20be%20filed.pdf?dl=0 ), Southbury Ambulance points out that the Town’s June application to the State’s Office of Emergency Medical Services was made by the Town of Southbury Police Department, an entity that does not legally exist as a functioning police department and, as such, lacks the authority to submit the application. The Town contracts with the State of Connecticut, in agreement with the bargaining unit of the state police union, utilizes state troopers to police its roadways with a staff of Town of Southbury officers.

Southbury Training School, which is operated by the State of Connecticut, previously announced that it will be closing down over the next couple of years. The school provides its own ambulance service as does Southbury’s Heritage Village, through a state-designated primary service area (PSA). Southbury Ambulance was first designated by the state in 1953 as the primary service area responder for the entire town. Southbury Training School and Heritage Village were later designated as their own PSAs due to the uniqueness of its communities. Southbury Ambulance believes that Southbury Training School’s PSA should revert back to SAA, its originating service provider.

Connecticut statutes govern the process by which a PSA may be changed, removed or reassigned, said Attorney Mary Alice Moore Leonhardt, from the Hartford firm of Moore Leonhardt & Associates, who filed yesterday’s petition. The Town of Southbury has failed on virtually all accounts, she said, to file as a qualified applicant.

“For safety’s sake, and to ensure uninterrupted, consistently fast and dependable ambulance service that the people in Southbury have come to know for better than 65 years, the Town’s application should be dismissed,” she said.

Moore Leonhardt pointed out that, in addition to the Town making an improper application through a non-existent applicant police department, the Town has no existing ambulance or EMS service experience on which to base a new service, nor the personnel or equipment in place to ensure a functioning service that citizens can rely on. In addition, she said, the Town fails to fulfill mandatory requirements relating to public notice or analysis of financial expense, impact on patient care, the effect on existing services and emergency medical services systems and the sustainability of such systems, among other requirements as listed in the petition.

“Not only does the non-existent Police Department not currently operate an ambulance service from a primary base of operations,” the petition points out, “but the First Selectman/Chief of Police has never been authorized to establish a police force in the Town of Southbury. In fact, past efforts brought before the Town at several referendums to establish a police department in the Town have been voted down.”

Geralyn Hoyt, chief of Southbury Ambulance, recently detailed some of the expenses that the Town of Southbury would incur in creating a new ambulance service and said it would likely necessitate local tax increases to build and sustain the service in addition to experiencing a degradation of existing ambulance services.

A sampling of those expenses include:

• Building, maintaining and operating an emergency service building

• Acquiring and maintaining a fleet of emergency medical vehicles

• Hiring and training personnel to manage; also related pensions, 401Ks, overtime, health insurance

• Billing services, medical supplies and equipment

· Operating the 911 communication system

• Add new frequency to the 911 communication system

• Additional Southbury/Town liability and malpractice insurance

• All of this is estimated to cost taxpayers approximately $5 million dollars

“Southbury Ambulance Association, a non-profit service, does not receive any funding from the Town of Southbury,” she said. “We do not take money from the taxpayers. In fact, every year, on behalf of the town of Southbury, Southbury Ambulance collects and remits to the Town over $100,000.00,” adding that Southbury Ambulance owns their building at zero-cost to taxpayers and their fleet of four ambulances, medical supplies and equipment.

Southbury Ambulance continues to expand its services and update its technology regularly to ensure consistent, quality lifesaving care, said Hoyt. Southbury Ambulance responds to over 2,000 emergency calls annually, she added, and is capable of meeting and responding to current and projected demand for emergency and paramedic services.

“Not only is there no call from anyone other than First Selectman Manville to change existing ambulance service in Southbury, there is absolutely no reason to do so, and every service reliability reason to leave it as is – for our patients’ sake,” she said.