WASHINGTON COUNTY, Maine — Earlier this year, a report from the Blue-Ribbon Commission, established to analyze Maine's Emergency Medical Services, said EMS providers are "at the edge of a cliff."
The report stated EMS services in rural areas are "already over that cliff."
Washington County EMS services are no different than others around the state. They are short-staffed and are in need of proper reimbursements to pay for their services. Rural EMS services in Washington County help in emergencies, but they're also heavily relied on for patient transfers.
Hospitals like Downeast Community Hospital in Machias are facing backups as some patients need to transfer hospitals for a higher level of care, but they can't find an available ambulance to give them a ride.
"When you don't have an ambulance to take a patient from here to there, that's just [fewer] patients that we can see at a time. It sort of just backlogs the whole system," Dr. Raymond Howard, an emergency room physician at Downeast Community Hospital, said.
Patients are waiting anywhere from 2 to 48 hours or even longer for an ambulance, according to Dr. Howard.
"There's not a day that goes by that I would hazard to guess at least about 50% of the ambulance services in Washington County are contacted multiple times per day to move a patient from either Calais hospital or Machias hospital," Sally Taylor, the director of Atlantic Partners EMS, said.
Taylor said patients are transferred to hospitals in the state or even as far as Boston, and those long-distance transfers make an impact on the already short-staffed services in the county. Moving a patient to Bangor, for instance, would take about five hours.
"That's a long time to take an ambulance out of your community and then depend on another neighboring ambulance service to therefore cover your calls," Renee Gray, the service chief for Moosabec Ambulance Service, said. "When somebody calls 911, I want somebody to respond."
While EMS services are facing challenges, the medical staff in Washington County hospitals are feeling the repercussions as well.
"Nurses are not meant to take care of patients for days on end in an emergency room. We're not set up for it," Howard said.
There is legislation this session addressing the needs of EMS services statewide based on the Blue-Ribbon Commission's findings. You can read the full commission report here.