Growth impacts emergency services

Flathead County is growing faster than its emergency medical crews can adjust to keep up.

Representatives from 23 fire departments, ambulance services and other agencies huddled Thursday to identify what problems they face from this rapid growth and other factors.

"We need to discuss the level of care we want, the level of care we need to have," said Dr. Rob Bates, the county's overall emergency services medical director.

The same agencies plan to meet at 5:30 p.m. March 22 at the Flathead County-City Health Department to figure out where they should improve the county's emergency medical services.

Then on March 29, the agencies plan to discuss how to tackle those future moves.

On Thursday, the agencies' representatives described an inability to recruit and hang on to firefighters and medical responders at the same pace as Flathead County's rural and city populations increase - in an area almost as big as Connecticut filled with mountains and remote outer areas.

The lack of spare time and increased training requirements because of legal liabilities are hurting rural departments, which depend on volunteers who have other jobs.

Emergency responders are certified at different skill levels. Many rural areas cannot be guaranteed that someone with the top skill level will respond to an emergency.

City and rural ambulance services frequently find themselves overextended - causing delays in reaching some emergencies. Yet people expect quick responses in places where the nearest available ambulance could be dozens of miles away.

In areas such as Lakeside, Kalispell's sometimes overextended ambulances are the only medical transportation.

Another factor is that many newcomers to the Flathead are older than average, a demographic group that needs ambulances more frequently, fire and emergency officials said. Tourist seasons also greatly increase emergency calls.

The representatives described a mixed relationship with their area's constituents.

In many cases, their individual communities are very supportive. In other cases, community members are not.

The construction of numerous million-dollar homes adds to the rural and city departments' tax bases. But many homeowners are part-time residents who are not emotionally invested in their local fire and emergency agencies.

Rural departments' representatives described a delicate balancing act of seeking local donations and taxing their residents - without overwhelming their constituents with both.

The possibility of billing for ambulance runs is another touchy topic - balancing a service's needs for money against the implied public contract of guaranteeing help during an emergency, they said.

Rural departments complained about some Kalispell annexation moves, saying they lose tax revenue to the city. And Kalispell's annexation of incorporated "islands" surrounded by rural land - one or two miles from the main city limits - creates potential confusion on who responds to an emergency, they said.

Meanwhile, aging equipment sucks up most of the public money going to a department or agency, with little left over for training, they said.

The rural and city fire and emergency services' representatives painted a conflicting picture of how well they coordinate and cooperate among themselves.

However, almost all believe significant improvements are needed.

Other areas of concern include:

. The county's dispatch equipment can do a fraction of what it should be capable of doing, they said. Radio communications within and between departments are frequently spotty.

. Procedures to determine which departments should respond to which emergencies need to be overhauled.

. There is no central plan or group in place to tackle coordination matters.

. Individual fire department and ambulance service areas have their own demographic personalities, different relationships with their individual medical directors, different focuses and different troubles.

. Lakeside and Bigfork firefighters and emergency responders have a specific challenge because parts of their coverage areas are in Lake County - meaning those services are dispatched through both Lake and Flathead counties.

. Developers and local governments often don't consult with emergency medical services when they map out and approve subdivisions.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com