Oley Ambulance closed out the year 2016 by making some big transitions. As of Nov. 28, 2016, the company has switched from a volunteer BLS service to fully-paid ALS Service.
According to Chief Marie Haas of the Oley Fire Company, this means Oley Ambulance can now offer Advanced Life Support instead of only Basic Life Support.
“With Basic Support we could do regular things like give oxygen, take care of bleeding; we did have AEDs,” said Haas. “We now have a regular monitor. There’s also a paramedic on board all of the time. They can give medications and monitor your heart rate all the way to the hospital. Which is what we did before, but we always had another truck that had to assist us. Now it’s going to be all our own.”
Prior to the advancement, she said the ambulances we staffed with EMTs. Now they will be staffed with an EMT and a paramedic.
“They can do the heart monitoring. The hospital gets that information before we even get to the hospital so they can be ready for you,” said Haas. “It’s an upgrade for us, that we can provide it to our residents. We don’t have to wait for another truck to come to provide those services- we now can provide it ourselves.”
The ambulance company has also made another recent change – from volunteer to paid.
“We went from a totally volunteer organization to paid organization,” said Haas. “Now the medics and EMTs are paid, we have to guarantee to the state that we’re open 24 hours.”
She noted the amount of paperwork associated with the changeover, and also acknowledged the need for the change.
“The only way we could do this whole transition was the pay people. This is where we had to go. Volunteers are getting to scarce.” She said there are about 8 volunteers remaining. “It’s tough because everyone is working is two jobs. It just didn’t work.”
The company’s service area includes all of Oley, and parts of Earl, Pike, Ruscombmanor, Rockland, and Alsace townships. It’s our surrounding area.
