Orange County’s busiest noncommercial ambulance services agency recently added two state-of-the-art ambulances to its fleet in the face of ever-increasing demand.
According to Town of Wallkill Emergency Medical Services Executive Director Alexandria Willshire, the new ambulances will replace two old ones while making transporting and caring for patients easier.
Both were ordered pre-pandemic, and each costs about $200,000.
“We are really excited,” Ms. Willshire said at a Feb. 8 press conference unveiling the new vehicles. “Everybody here can probably stand up in them and not knock their head—believe me, that is a big deal for our patients and EMS workers.”
The new ambulances also feature labeled supply bins for quick access, flexible attendant seat belts for easier patient care, and semi-automatic stretchers for painless loading.
“Previously, we had to physically wheel the stretcher up to the ambulance,” said Ezra Kuliszewski, a part-time emergency medical technician. “The new system lifts the stretcher itself, and it makes it a lot safer when we are dealing with very heavy patients.”
He said that back pain due to transporting patients is one of the most common health problems among his professional peers.
“We don’t appreciate the need of an ambulance until we need it,” Town of Wallkill Supervisor George Serrano said at the press conference, recalling how emergency medical services workers arrived at his mother’s house and saved her life just days ago.
“Someone is having the worst day of their life, and you are there to help them,” Mr. Serrano said. “You’ve got to be a special breed, and you’ve got to have a lot of compassion to do this work.”
The agency currently employs more than 40 EMTs and paramedics, 10 of whom are full-time workers.
The agency’s service volumes grow by about 10 percent every year, according to Ms. Willshire.
As the number of calls served steadily rises, Ms. Willshire has been looking for revenue sources beyond traditional medical billing to keep the crucial services going in the long run.
“The downside of medical billing, our only income source now, is that we don’t get paid every time we send out an ambulance,” she told The Epoch Times. “It is not sustainable given the demand we have.”
Mr. Serrano told the publication that he had been in talks with the agency to identify ways the town could help; options on the table included creating an ambulance district.
As of now, the agency is the only one in the county that provides advanced life support services without the benefit of municipal funding.
Maria Ingrassia, Mike Anagnostakis, and Jean Gallagher were representatives for U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, state Sen. James Skoufis, and state Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther, respectively, at the announcement ceremony.
