St. Germain enters contract with Oneida County Ambulance Service

On Sept. 9 the St. Germain town board voted unanimously to enter into a contract with the Oneida County Ambulance Service for additional emergency medical coverage for the town.

St. Germain has its own ambulance and personnel, but its one vehicle and limited crew roster mean sometimes an ambulance cannot be dispatched when needed. The town has a mutual-aid agreement with the town of Plum Lake, which means the two crews act as back-ups to one another. 

There are infrequent circumstances when simultaneously neither town can dispatch an emergency medical crew.

St. Germain already has an intercept contract in place with the Oneida County Ambulance Service, which relieves part of the burden on one-ambulance towns of transporting patients to Oneida County medical facilities. 

“We have a contract with them right now for intercept at $400 per intercept,” board chairman Tom Christensen explained during last week’s meeting.

“And that will stay in place,” he said. “This contract is if their ambulance comes all the way in to St. Germain and goes to a home or a business. And that would be in place of our ambulance.”

“In other words,” Christensen said, “If our ambulance couldn’t respond…or if Plum Lake couldn’t come. There’s several things that would have to go into play (for that to happen). They told us that this has happened four times this year. However, they did qualify that with ‘However, we’re probably 60 days behind in our reporting, so…’.”

“The fee will be $1,800 if that happens,” he said, “And we really need it to back our ambulance up.”

The board voted unanimously in favor of having Christensen sign the multi-year contract.