Volunteer Ambulance Corps Never Charges, Seeks Public’s Support to Continue Serving

COURT HOUSE – Middle Township Ambulance Corps, Inc. recently sent donation letters to residents in its coverage area, north of Indian Trail to the border of Dennis Township. The letter states, “Middle Township Ambulance Corps, Inc. is completely manned by volunteers and we have never billed for our service.”
When those same residents opened their tax bills, they read, in an explanation of taxes, that the municipality provides “24-hour paid first responder ambulance service.”
Then, the question arose: Why does Middle Township Emergency Medical Service send a bill for ambulance service?
In October 2012 Middle Township Committee passed an amendment to a previous ordinance that increased the cost of emergency transport services from $700 to $750.
The ordinance calls for the new amount to be billed “in each instance where EMS services are provided.” According to the ordinance, a patient’s insurance company will be billed for the services. If, however, a person does not have insurance, the individual will be responsible for the charges.
Insurance payments that are denied are passed on to the patient for payment. Patients who are residents of the township will be billed at the Medicare Allowed Emergency ground transport rate. Non-residents are charged the full amount.
Some may be left to wonder about the seeming disparity in emergency medical transport.
Debra Rue, president of volunteer Middle Township Ambulance Corps, explained what her corps, which began in 1958, does.
“The Township of Middle has two volunteer (rescue) services, one is Middle Township Ambulance Corps and the other is Rio Grande Rescue Squad. We handle north of Indian Trail, they handle everything south of Indian Trail,” said Rue.
About 2000, the township realized most volunteer rescue squad members worked through the day, and that it was increasingly difficult to have emergency calls answered. That’s when the municipal leaders “decided to go to 24-hour paid EMS,” said Rue.
As of this year, each volunteer rescue squad received $35,000 from the township.
“The Township of Middle Paid EMS (Emergency Medical Services) uses our ambulances, our building, our supplies, which means we pay everything but fuel and insurance,” Rue said.
During week days, from 6 a.m. until 4 p.m., Middle Township EMS uses a Middle Township Ambulance Corps “truck,” based in the Middle Township Ambulance Corps building in Court House, staffed by Middle Township-paid personnel.
Also during the weekdays, from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., Middle Township EMS paid EMTs use Rio Grande Rescue Squad’s Building.
From 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and on weekends one paid township crew (ambulance) is on, and they rotate buildings each month, said Rue. In July, Middle Township EMS is using Rio Grande’s facility.
“What happens, when a tone (call) goes out, if a paid truck or trucks are already being used for another call, the tone will get hit for the volunteers, 99 percent of whom respond from their homes to the building, day or night,” she said.
“Township of Middle paid EMS are the ones who bill,” said Rue. “The Township of Middle does not give us any of those funds. We do not get a percent of the bill. We get one flat fee per year to cover trucks, repairs, supplies, electric, gas and water,” she continued.
Should a motor vehicle accident take place at 7 p.m., the paid crew will get the call. If another ambulance is needed then, depending on the location of the call, one of the volunteer squads will be called to handle it. You will not get a bill if volunteers transport you. We are a volunteer organization so we cannot bill,” Rue said.
That puts the squad in a squeeze for equipment. With the cost of a new ambulance being over $160,000, the corps has no choice but to keep the ones it has which are from 1994, 1995 and 2002. The cost of an AED alone (automated external defibrillator) is about $3,000, which each ambulance is required to carry.
“In order to make ends meet, we have to send fund drive letters and do coin drops,” said Rue. “We do our coin drops every holiday weekend, and they (volunteers) give up their time to do this so we can maintain our squad.”
There are about 42 volunteers who carry the banner for Middle Township Ambulance Corps. That counts auxiliary members who want to help, but choose not to run a duty night for one reason or another. There are also volunteers known as “3rd’s” who are learning to become EMTs, and assist the EMT’s as they are CPR certified.
Rue noted that two auxiliary members folded and stuffed the recent fund drive letters. “When we have coin drops, our auxiliary members help any way they can, bring us drinks, cold water in summer or hot coffee other times.”
Rue thinks again, and said that volunteers do get something for their selfless hours: “We get the self satisfaction of knowing that we have helped their community in their time of need. The only thing we can afford to give our members is a T-shirt, a holiday family social at our building and every two years all our members, including our life members, are invited to a squad dinner for themselves and their partner.”
There is the requirement of continuous education to maintain a volunteer’s EMT (emergency medical technician) certification, some of which the Township of Middle has paid for,” the rest we must pay for,” Rue said.
“We are trying to help our community,” said Rue. “In so doing, our volunteers recently took time off work to give one of their own, James Cline, Sr. “a proper EMS funeral.” The life member answered his final call, and was carried to his grave in “our ambulance,” said Rue. “This is what people never see.”
“EMTs risk their lives on every single call,” she said. She estimated the volunteers respond to more calls than volunteer firefighters. “Our volunteers don’t know what they are walking into on every call. There may be exposed to communicable diseases, be punched or spit on by a patient. We put our life on the line every time, and there is no one to support us,” Rue added.
Middle Township Ambulance Corps owns its building (which is too small to house all their vehicles) and has three ambulances, a fire “rehab” ambulance and one first-responder command vehicle. When a fire call is sounded, “The volunteers are there.’
In addition, the volunteers are ready for mutual aid to assist, such as in the recent Avalon house fire when firefighters battled the conflagration, volunteer EMT’s and 3rd’s were there, supplying water, rehab and ready to aid injured firefighters, she said.
“During Hurricane Sandy, we had members stay at the building so they could help our community. These members left their families and the comfort of their homes to stay at our building, sleeping on the floor, to be there to handle the calls. This is done for all type of weather events,” Rue said.
Rio Grande’s counterpart of Rue is Nancy Burke, president of that squad. Chief of Middle Township Ambulance Corps is Faith Lancaster and Sean McDevitt is the chief at Rio Grande.
Rue said there was some discussion of renaming the squad Court House Rescue so people would maybe stop confusing them with the Township of Middle EMS (paid EMTs), but then, members recalled the 50+ year heritage of service, and opted to maintain its name. Volunteers are placed on rotating rosters.
From Monday to Friday, a crew starts at 6 p.m.and remains on call until 6 a.m. Weekends are covered from 6 am to 6 am the next morning with crews rotating the duty,
Rue asked one final thing of the public. “When you see a blue light, pull over and let us through. Our members have blue emergency lights. When they are answering a call, they are activated, yet some people do not pull over to let the volunteer past.”