Portland interim Fire Chief Ryan Gillespie is calling on Multnomah County to change its required ambulance staffing ratio to eliminate lengthy wait times.
The county currently requires all American Medical Response (AMR) ambulance to be staffed by two paramedics. A shortage of available paramedics is causing some ambulances to respond late to emergency calls or not all. Gillespie wants the county to allow one of the staffers to be an emergency medical technician (EMT), who are more available.
“The shortage of ambulances is putting the community’s lives in jeopardy and it is also putting our firefighter’s lives in danger,” Gillespie said in a Jan. 23 letter to county’s medical director and health operations manager.
The Portland Tribune recently reported that Multnomah County commissioners are discussing make such a change but have not yet reached a decision (“Tensions and wait times rise during Multnomah County ambulance shortage,” Jan. 9, 2024).
In his letter, Gillespie said, “Over the past several months, PF&R has been forced to transport critical patients to the hospital in the back of fire apparatus and SUVS due to no ambulances being available. This is extremely unsafe for the patients and for the firefighters providing medical care as these vehicles are not licensed, nor set up to transport critical patients. The shortage of ambulances is putting the community's lives in jeopardy and it is also putting our firefighters’ lives in danger.”
Recently, a PF&R firefighter injured fighting a fire had to be transported to the hospital in the back of a fire vehicle, while a man having symptoms of a heart attack on a TriMet bus had to be driven to the hospital in the bus because of a lack of available ambulances.
KOIN 6 News is a news partner of the Pamplin Media Group and contributed to this story. Their full story can be found at koin.com.
