The ongoing emergency medical services crisis in Clarion County has claimed the Shippenville/Elk Township Ambulance Service. It will close, effective Feb. 1.
Letters announcing the closure are being sent to members and local and county officials, as required by state law.
Those letters should arrive in mailboxes this week.
“We’ve been discussing it for a while. We’ve probably been kicking it around for a year or a year and a half. We just can’t ‘crew.’ Finances are an issue, but the personnel situation is terrible.”
He said all of the EMS services are “pulling from the same pot. We just cannot function the way things are.”
EMS staffing is a statewide problem. In the past few years, however, it has become a major issue in rural areas. Clarion County leaders have formed a task force to look at the problem and develop possible solutions, but little relief has been found.
The county task force was advised of the pending Shippenville closure at its meeting late Monday afternoon.
The service
According to Merryman, the Shippenville EMS station employs four full-time paramedics, four part-time paramedics and two part-time EMTs.
Shippenville is an advanced life-support ambulance service. ALS runs are staffed with at least a paramedic and an EMT.
“That staffing requirement is a huge problem,” said Dave Burgdorfer, vice president of the ambulance service’s board of directors.
Due to the challenge of finding EMS personnel, Merryman said the Shippenville station must first survey its employees to determine their availability; then try to build a staffing schedule based on that availability.
“We have to have two people on every crew,” he said. “It’s mind-boggling to even try to do it.”
Tight budget
“Financially, we are holding our own,” Merryman said of the service’s always tight budget. “But we are losing money every month. We’re tapping our reserves, but that can’t last forever.”
Chris Merryman, secretary and treasurer for the ambulance company, said the service is at the point in the year when it begins its annual membership drive.
“We didn’t want to go into that and have our members send in their money for 2023 and then in two months we decide not to continue,” Burgdorfer said.
The annual memberships in place will be honored through the end of 2022. Anyone in need of an ambulance should call 911, as has been the procedure in the past.
Areas served
The ambulance service is the designed EMS service for Shippenville Borough and Elk, Paint, Washington and Knox townships in Clarion County, and a portion of Pinegrove Township in Venango County.
Due to ambulance service storages everywhere, however, the Shippenville ambulances, like all others, can be dispatched to emergencies all over the county or even other counties.
State law requires each municipality to have a designed EMS service. Those municipalities served by the Shippenville service will have to designate another EMS unit as its primary service.
Again, anyone in need of an ambulance should call 911, no matter where they live.
“911 will dispatch the closest ambulance they have available,” Steve Merryman said. “But that’s the way it has always been. You will still get that next available ambulance, but after Jan. 31, 2023, it just won’t be coming from Shippenville.”
The closure of the Shippenville/Elk station reduces Clarion County’s EMS service to just four stations — Clarion Hospital, Knox, East Brady and Rimersburg-based Southern Clarion County Ambulance Service. Emlenton Ambulance Service also serves parts of Clarion County.
Asset dispersal
The Shippenville/Elk Township Ambulance Service is owned by the Shippenville/Elk Township Volunteer Fire Department. The two entities are under the leadership of separate boards of directors.
Steve Merryman said the ambulance equipment will be dispersed or sold to other ambulance companies.
“If we can help other EMS companies out, we will,” he said.
The two boards of directors met several times to discuss the looming EMS problem.
“We all agreed, this is the route we need to go,” said Burgdorfer, who also is president of the fire department’s board of directors.
Chris Merryman said, “We’re very sorry it’s come to this.”
Steve Merryman said community support has been strong for the ambulance service, although some elected municipal leaders have been slower to recognize the challenges facing EMS services.
“And in five years, the fire departments are going to be facing the same problems,” Burgdorfer said.