ROCKPORT — As manning shifts at the Rockport Ambulance Department with volunteers has become unsustainable, the town has entered negotiations with a “third-party” ambulance company to providing full-time coverage.
Rockport residents need not worry — emergency medical services are being provided, Select Board Chair Ross Brackett said.
“There are no public safety concerns in Rockport,” he said. “Both Beauport and Rockport are responding to calls. I want to make that clear.”
Currently, ambulance services are provided by both the Rockport Ambulance Department and the Gloucester-based Beauport Ambulance Service.
Town Administrator Mitchell Vieira was directed to conduct contact talks with Beauport Ambulance by vote last month of four of the five members of the Select Board.
The contract would have Beauport “assume primary ambulance services as of July 1, 2025,” Vieira said. “The town is finalizing a contract that the Select Board will vote on in the near future.”
Fifth member Laura Evans voted to abstain.
“Privatizing will cost the town and those served by the ambulance more money and, more importantly, the local control of the service and the community-building opportunity for townspeople to serve one another,” she said. “But the clock has run out and we need to act. The Select Board voted to privatize and I respect that vote.”
“The decision was to authorize the town administrator to begin negotiations with a private ambulance service,” Brackett said. “The board will have another chance to decide whether or not to accept the contract.”
The Rockport Ambulance Department was founded in the early 1970s as a 24-hour emergency medical service. The department maintains its own headquarters at 37-R Broadway. The volunteers who staff the service are all certified by the commonwealth of Massachusetts as emergency medical technicians in basic life support.
Rockport Ambulance is a self-supporting entity, whose budget is generated by the user fee insurance that a person pays when a transport is made. In addition, the department is supported by donations made by the public, according to the town website.
After a contract is developed and then signed by the town and the chosen private ambulance company, the Rockport Ambulance Department will likely be dissolved, Brackett said.
Former Rockport firefighter Don Poole served for years as both a firefighter and member of the Rockport Ambulance Department. He has long advocated for the two departments to merge.
“I would have loved to see the Ambulance Department become part of the Fire Department,” he said. “I proposed that for years.”
Select Board Vice Chair Denise Donnelly said the board’s vote made sense.
“The whole idea was that we don’t have enough volunteers to staff the Ambulance Department,” she said. “The volunteers we do have are working incredibly hard. It’s not fair for them to cover all the shifts. It’s supposed to be a part-time thing. For a number of them, it was becoming overwhelming.”
Donnelly predicted it will “take some time” before a contract is signed. In the meantime, she said the town’s residents can expect the appropriate emergency medical ambulance services to continue.
“We do have arrangements in place,” she said. “The town is protected. We have coverage until a new contract is signed and in effect.”
The volunteer department has faced staffing challenges since COVID-19, said Patti Tucker, Rockport Ambulance’s interim director.
“After COVID, there was a shortage of EMTs nationwide,” she said. “A lot of us were burned out about a year ago. We’re down to a skeleton crew at this point.”
There are officially 11 EMTs on the department, but recently only about six have been making emergency calls, Tucker said.
“It’s very taxing to the six of us,” she said.
Tucker said she would love to see Rockport Ambulance thrive but said staffing challenges have essentially made that impossible.
“It’s Rockport people helping Rockport people,” she said. “But unfortunately, the volunteer model doesn’t seem to work anymore.”
Stephen Hagan can be reached at 978-675-2708 or at shagan@gloucestertimes.com.