The good news is that the Isle of Palms Fire Department is considering adding paramedics to the payroll, potentially cutting the response time to medical emergencies on the island by 7.5 minutes. The bad news is that the estimated startup costs for such a plan could approach $1 million in the first year.
Fire Chief Craig Oliverius presented three options at the Council’s March 14 workshop, just eight days after making a similar presentation to the Council’s Public Safety Committee. The most expensive possibility, at $960,000, included hiring six paramedics who would also serve as firefighters and an operations chief, at a cost of $750,000 in salaries and benefits, along with $150,000 for equipment and another $60,000 for a vehicle for the operations chief.
“Our budget cannot absorb a million dollars in expenses,” Mayor Phillip Pounds pointed out. “This would absolutely require some type of tax increase or shifting or something. The good news for that is we have a piece of debt rolling off at the end of June. Maybe some tourism funds and maybe a third of that coming from a tax increase.”
“I’m sure the Public Safety Committee will be taking it up every month. We’re going to stay on top of it. This is something that’s really needed for the island. It’s something that really merits consideration,” Committee Chair Jimmy Ward said.
A second option presented by Oliverius would not include an operations chief or vehicle and would cost the city $750,000 in year 1. The $150,000 in equipment for either option would pay for $120,000 for two cardiac monitors, which would have to be replaced every five years, and $30,000 for medications and other necessary equipment.
A third option, the chief said, would be to hire a third party to provide parademics. Based on estimates from Port City Ambulance, that would cost the city $761,040 in the first year. Oliverius explained that if the city chooses a third-party provider, a 911 call would have to go through Charleston County dispatch, then to the provider before help would be on the way.
“We feel our response times would suffer, but the ambulance would be here on the island, which would be a great thing, but efficiency would be lost. If it is a Port City paramedic, they can respond to 47 to 50% of our call volume.”
He explained that a third-party provider would respond only to situations that are medical in nature and that the IOP Fire Department would still have to handle water rescues and fires. He pointed out that in 2022, the average response time on the island for IOP Fire and Rescue was 6 minutes and 53 seconds, compared with 14 minutes and 23 seconds for Charleston County EMS.
Even if it hires its own paramedics, the IOP Fire Department will not transport patients off the island.
Council Member Katie Miars asked if the IOP Fire Department’s agreement with other area departments would require IOP paramedics to leave the island to respond to calls in other jurisdictions.
“That’s not a shared asset, unless Mount Pleasant or Sullivan’s Island reached out and asked for that asset,” Oliverius responded. “The battalion chief would make that decision, if we’re able to or not. That builds in some resiliency for us.”
The fire chief said his department could send firemen to paramedic training but added that the rigorous course takes 18 months to complete and only two current firefighters are interested in the year-and-a-half investment. He said if the city hired paramedics, the program would be up and running by April 2024. They would be able to complete firefighter school in September in Mount Pleasant. Oliverius said currently, he is the only certified paramedic in the IOP Fire Department.
When Miars asked if it would be difficult to recruit paramedics to work on IOP, Oliverius responded: “We are actually sitting in a really good spot. We’re very attractive for a place to work. It’s an amazing, beautiful location. The call volume is rewarding, but you’re not putting 300 miles on an ambulance every day. We have a unique opportunity.”
