The Fennimore Area EMS will be holding a “community information meeting” this Sunday, Sept. 20 at 4 p.m. at the EMS station, 1070 8th Street, next to the fire station.
All residents of Fennimore (town and city) as well as Mt. Ida, Liberty, Hickory Grove, Town of Mt. Hope, North Lancaster, Castle Rock, Little Grant, and Marion are invited to attend.
The meeting, which has been in the works for some time now, according to Jenifer Heisz, current Fennimore EMS secretary/treasurer, will be held in a town hall forum setting.
Heisz stated that the squad will being supplying information in the form of handouts and a Power Point presentation. Attendees may ask questions during the presentation and there will be a “Q&A” session afterwards.
Some of the topics the squad plans to address include:
- Overall costs
- Updating/maintaining equipment
- Continuing education
- Staffing
Staffing continues to be for the Fennimore squad, as well as many other surrounding communities, an ongoing issue.
Heisz said that recently the squad made the decision to hire two part-time crew members, that they’ll “fund as long as we can” to offset the number of volunteer hours.
She went on to explain that even with the two new part-time positions, which account for 224 hours of the 1,344 monthly hours needed to have a 24/7 crew, that leaves 1,120 hours needed from the 10 current volunteers the squad currently has on its roster.
To break that down further, each of the 10 members therefore would need to commit to 112 hours a month to still have the full staff 24/7 crew.
“We get people volunteering to be drivers, but we are really in need of licensed crew members to make calls,” Heisz went on to explain. Information on how to become a licensed volunteer and the steps to take will also be addressed at the Sept. 20 meeting.
“We want people to understand the astronomical weight we all carry,” Heisz explained.” But we all want our patients to receive good care from the time we get there until the time we get them to the hospital. It all can be a heavy burden, but we all care.”
The meeting is at 4 p.m. on Sunday, and the Packers play at noon that day, so once everyone has hopefully watched the Pack beat up on the hapless Jets, head on down to the EMS station and listen and ask questions on how the community can help the Fennimore EMS continue.
