RENSSELAERVILLE — As it heads into its tenth year of service, the Albany County Sheriff’s Department Emergency Medical Services Unit is reflecting on its origins and anticipating higher fees to pay for evolving technology and a more reliable staff.

Medical services coordinator Brian Wood gave a presentation on the unit at the Rensselaerville Town Board meeting last Thursday. Rensselaerville is one of the six towns the unit serves. The others are Berne, Bethlehem, Coeymans, New Scotland, and Westerlo. This covers 350 square miles and about 62,500 people.

The unit started work in February, 1996 with the intention of providing paramedic services to towns in the county that lacked their own, Wood said. Before that, Wood explained to The Enterprise, if residents in those towns needed paramedic services, they had to rely on commercial ambulance companies. For a time, Wood said, the Albany Fire Department was able to send paramedics, but stopped doing that because it stretched the department too thin.
"That’s why we started," Wood said.

With the service, the entire county is covered by paramedics, Wood said. The remaining Hilltown, Knox, gets service from Guilderland’s paramedics.

Currently, the unit has two full-time paramedics and 39 part-time paramedics. In 2004, they answered 4,459 calls. This is up by over 600, 13.5 percent, from 1997, the first full year of operation.
"Every year we get a couple hundred more calls," Wood said.

Each town pays for its service. The unit is divided into zones: the Hilltowns, New Scotland and Bethlehem, and Coeymans. Each town in a zone then pays a portion of the price.
"They split the cost by population," Wood said.

Rensselaerville paid about $57,000 last year, Wood told The Enterprise. The cost goes up about 8 percent each year, he said.

Besides the rising costs of insurance and fuel, Wood said, part of the increase is to pay for more modern equipment and training.
"We’re never behind the eight-ball," Wood said.

For example, he said, when the unit began work, it used $12,000 hands-on defibrillators. Now, more reliable hands-free defibrillators cost twice as much.

Also, Wood said, in the past year, the unit added six treatment protocols, bringing the total to 53, each of which requires training. For example, a last-ditch treatment for clearing a patient’s airway, which involves injecting paralyzing agents, requires earning certification twice a year.

Another financial problem facing the unit is recruiting and retaining employees. Wood hopes to add more full-time paramedics to replace some of the part-timers. He explained that most of the part-time paramedics work full-time for the Albany Fire Department and other organizations and are not always available.
"The problem is that you get less reliability in people," Wood said.

To attract full-time employees, Wood said, the salary needs to be raised. Right now, he said, full-time paramedics in the unit make $15.42 per hour, about $34,000 per year, compared to $61,000 per year for a similar position with the Albany Fire Department, Wood said. So, he said, one of the unit’s goals for the future is pay equity.

A Rensselaerville resident himself, Wood is passionate about maintaining his unit’s status as one of the most up-to-date services in the area.
"It’s an adventure," he said. "It’s a challenge."

After Wood’s presentation, the Rensselaerville Town Board commended the Albany County Sheriff’s Department Emergency Medical Services Unit.

Other business

In other business at the Sept. 8 meeting, the Rensselaerville Town Board:

—Agreed to consider adding money for improvements to town buildings to the 2006 budget. Tom Mikulka asked for the money on behalf of the Beautification Committee, of which, he said, he is the only member.

Mikulka was especially concerned about structural damage on the town’s salt barn. He estimated the repairs would cost $3,500. In return, he said, he would paint the town hall for only the cost of materials; and

—Discussed hiring a replacement for Laura Farrell, who resigned for personal reasons as data collector for the assessing department. The department suggested Larry Graudons, who was one of the original applicants for the job. Town attorney Joseph Catalano asked if the department would consider hiring a company to do data collection.

The town is in the middle of a reassessment project.

The assessing department said it would do a background check on Graudons and look into hiring a company and then request a special meeting of the town board to make the final decision.