WAS ELIZONDO PLANNING TO DO AWAY WITH FIRE BASED-EMS?

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Elizondo thought of the wives and kids of the 49 rookie firefighters he was gonna fire to get his private ambulances in the department? NOVEMBER 2, 2017 AT 9:57 PM

By Juan Montoya

For the past few weeks after former Brownsville Fire Department Chief Carlos Elizondo was demoted, and then suspended with pay, indicted by a grand jury for theft, and then suspended without pay, this allegation has gone around.

As we know, a City of Brownsville Commission Audit and Oversight Committee report charged that Elizondo and his associate chief Ernie Estrada had instructed dispatchers to steer non-emergency transfer patients to private ambulance carrier Intercity Ambulance Services. The report further charged that at $800 a pop, the city EMS service had lost $62,000.

Many sources have asserted that Elizondo had a personal interest in the private ambulance carrier and may have been a silent partner.

The report alleged that Elizondo personally called dispatchers at least four times to call the private carrier instead of the city crews. If he had not been removed as fire chief, sources inside the department have asserted that Elizondo was planning to move to ambulance privatization, a non fire-based system an doing away with the paramedics and do away with 49 rookie department firefighters.

Back in 2000, Brownsville became the first valley city to merge its EMS service with the fire department, a move that was applauded as providing the best service for the buck to city residents. In the profession, this is called fire-based EMS System . (For a short tape on the fire-based EMS system, click on link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=romb4LAYJYs)

The calls to EMS are categorized into two categories, emergency and non-emergency. In the case of emergency calls, it involves accidents, fires, crashes, etc. Non-emergency calls are for transferring patients inside the city to the doctor's office, clinics, or hospitals for routine treatment.

Non-emergency calls are very lucrative, and many private companies have seen the opportunity to move in and make some money. The fees for the service are usually paid by private insurance, Medicaid or Medicare. In the case of Brownsville, these non-emergency transfers provide the financial cushion that lessens the blow to local taxpayers and pays for a nice chunk of the costs associated with the fire department and EMS ambulance service.

That nice chunk of cash is what is luring private providers who want to serve patients in the city. However, the city ordinance states that the service is exclusive to Brownsville EMS and provides for  a process of certification of need, licensing and other requirements before they can transfer patients inside the city. So far, there have been no ambulance firms licensed to do non-emergency transfer services in Brownsville.

In fact, the audit committee found that neither the city manager, the Health Department director, or the city manager had ever approved any company to operate here. 

A few years back, the Ytrurria family donated two ambulances to the city due to the shortage of units available to serve city residents. The donation came with a requirement, though. They required that no private ambulances be allowed to compete with the city EMS units.

"Before that the city was using hearses from the funeral homes due to the shortage," remembers Jorge Lerma, current president of the Brownsville Firefighters Association. "It was more of a taxi service than anything else."

Since 1995, the association was trying to persuade the city commission through its labor agreement negotiations to implement a Fire-based EMS System, so that all firefighters in the city also be certified as paramedics. In 2000, the city accepted the proposal and the system was implemented.

Now, as private providers eye the lucrative ambulance transfer market, Lerma said he is afraid that the money to be had through this service will be handed over to the private carriers. 

"We use the non-emergency transfer to train our paramedics in Brownsville," Lerma said. "These transfers provide the city with a cushion to fund the rest of the services provided through the department. In future city elections, there are going to be a lot of interests that will want to make political contributions who will want to privatize this service to the detriment of the taxpayers and the city's budget."