“I had brought up the topic of ambulance service multiple times at the town hall, and I know the former supervisor had started to look at something, but it’s a big nut to crack,” said Hurley councilmember and safety committee chair Debbie Dougherty, whose father started its predecessor, the local rescue squad. “I drove the ambulance for a number of years, myself and my husband, and then we began traveling for IBM,” she said. “So we ended up backing out of that. So for me, the fact of making sure that we have ambulance services is very personal.”
Establishment of a tax district for the comprehensive Hurley ambulance service is very likely to stem the tide of unanswered calls and plummeting volunteer availability.
In January, after being appointed to fill a vacancy on the town board, Dougherty got to work, speaking with the Hurley and West Hurley fire departments. Everyone was supportive.
“EMS is basically in crisis everywhere, not just here,” she said. “Everywhere, the state, the county, the states, federal.”
West Hurley’s more fortunate than Old Hurley, she said. “They have a few more EMTs, but they have the same issue.”
In Old Hurley, only two or three volunteers respond to the majority of calls.
The Town of Hurley proposal is part of the trend of ambulance services going fully or partly paid, Dougherty noted. Neighboring Marbletown made the switch, as did Olive. Woodstock recently made the decision to supplement its volunteer rescue squad with four paid EMTs.
Dougherty put together an eleven-member EMS subcommittee of the newly formed safety committee, which meets every two weeks. It ultimately decided that a paid crew was the best way to go.
“Really, we just have to go with a paid service in Hurley,” she said. “We’re not going to contract with anybody else. We’re just going to start our own not-for-profit, paid service.”
The town decided to use American Rescue Plan money left over from the Covid era to pay for the work of attorney Terry Hannigan, who specializes in ambulance services.
“What’s more perfect to use that [money] for than emergency medical services that help every resident in the town,” said Dougherty, “so we all agreed we would start with that.”
The goal is to have the district formed in a year.
The town needs a board of directors to run the service. Dougherty already has an operations manager lined up.
The ambulance service will use a company to bill insurance providers, and the town will make up remaining cost of ambulance runs after the insurance payments.
The town will likely purchase the existing two ambulances from the Hurley and West Hurley fire departments and the taxing district will then be responsible for maintaining them and purchasing replacements.
Hurley’s service will be strictly basic life support, or BLS, eliminating the need for paramedics. The hope is most patients can be transported to the hospital before advanced life support is needed, since Hurley is close to Kingston.
“We could still have a situation where we get two calls at the same time, and we’re gonna have to rely on mutual aid,” she said.
The ins and outs of a paid ambulance service will be explained during a presentation at the 6 p.m. August 13 workshop meeting of the town board, at the West Hurley firehouse, 24 Wall Street.
“I would love for everybody in Hurley to come out,” she said. A mailing will go to every Hurley household reminding them of the meeting.
“I don’t want anybody to get their tax bill and say I knew nothing about this,” she said.
A public hearing will follow in September.
Still to be worked out is the cost per taxpayer, which Dougherty said should be minimal, and the administrative and startup costs of building a paid ambulance service.
Dougherty said it would be a phased transition.
“We will never allow a situation where nobody’s going out,” she said. “Our firehouses and the volunteers are 100 percent heroes. They’re dedicated.”
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