6 months in review
Fire and Rescue Chief Daniel Meehan
June 12, 2015
Right after being sworn in as the new Lebanon Fire Chief in January 2015 I was asked if I wanted to also take over as the Rescue Chief. I agreed as one of my goals was to merge the two departments together in the future.
As I hit the ground running I learned that there were 8 OSHA violations on the Rescue side that were reported back in February of 2014 and little if anything was done to correct them. Because they had gone for so long OSHA would provide no extensions and I had 30 days to correct the violations or there would be a hefty fine costing thousands. The violations were completed with help of some dedicated members within the 30 days and instead of fines in the thousands, the fine was less than one hundred dollars.
Since January the Rescue has responded to about 146 calls some having multiple patients or multiple calls back to back. Just in the month of May, there were 33 calls.
By February I started posting a monthly calendar within Rescue where members could sign up for shift coverage. This was important because for the first time, it took the guess work and confusion out of exactly who would take the call. No more, the tone going off an every responder assuming someone else would take the call. It was the beginning of accountability.
By signing up for coverage the volunteer could cover calls by responding from home or one of the stations, being paid $5 for signing up and $4.35 per each call. A few members took advantage of this and have stepped up to make sure calls were covered. But not every day or every hour is covered. This was only a start until we had the chance to go to the voters to pass a new budget that would allow volunteers to start covering shifts part time, and better our coverage and response times.
The Rescue Department had 2 ambulances, both housed in the Blasdell Station on Rt 202. I decided for better coverage to all areas of town, to move one ambulance to the Fire Station, this way volunteers covering shifts could respond to the station closer to their homes
Now it has been 6 months since I took office. On June 12, 2015 I met with the Sanford Fire and Rescue folks to talk about the $2000 billing they were charging because in the past, our ambulance was not attending to all our town's calls and Sanford was responding in our place. Sanford had also said that they would no longer be able to provide mutual aid to Lebanon at one point. Sanford is now back to providing mutual aid, but they were still charging that $2000 if they would have to be the sole ambulance responding to calls in Lebanon.
I now have something to work with in explaining to other departments. Our budgets have passed and I am now working on the plans to put part time shifts which will make sure the Lebanon Rescue Department is always staffed. The Sanford agencies are happy with the amount of progress being made in Lebanon since I became Chief. They have, at this time, agreed to stop charging the $2000 fee should they need to be the sole responder on a Lebanon Emergency call. There have been a few charges of $2,000 in the past, but they are also working on having those bills cleared from their books.
Please see this note from the City of Sanford Fire Department.
6/12/2015
Chief-
Thank you for meeting with Chief Cutter and me today It was a very productive session. First let me reiterate that the City of Sanford Fire Department has agreed to stop charging your town an “Initial Response Fee” due solely because of your great work on this matter. We have watched great things happening in Lebanon because of your leadership, stability, and courage to take the appropriate actions to fix problems. We look forward to strengthening our relationships more as time goes on so our communities may yield the benefits of a strong Fire/EMS system in this area. It is good to hear that the people of the town are supporting your efforts. Thank you again for your work in this matter and if you need anything please don’t hesitate to call me.
Steven R. Benotti Fire Chief
City of Sanford Fire Department
I have also reached out to Frisbie Memorial Hospital to begin building a stronger partnership with them. During negotiations with the education director, an agreement was reached which would give the Rescue department an educational grant in order to help build our staff of medical professionals. We have several students studying to become EMTs at Frisbee Hospital at the time of this writing.
Frisbee Hospital's EMT grant, was a great benefit to the Department and to our town. A typical Basic EMT course normally runs about $900 or more per person, and would have to be paid by the individual volunteer. This grant has allowed more people to be trained in EMT work so that they may become volunteers for our Rescue Department.
With the progress that has been made with the Rescue billing company Comstar, I visited the company in May along with Selectmen Ben Thompson to talk about the billing process and about dropping the rate for billing. The company who has seen much improvement in the Rescue Department agreed to lower the rate by a whole point. Then after review of the new contract Selectmen Thompson had the rate lowered again by a quarter point. This is a very large boost for the people of Lebanon.
Work is continuing on both Fire and Rescue sides of our newly combined department to update policies, gear and equipment.
