BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo's only ambulance service is drawing the ire of those in need of their service according to common councilmember Mitch Nowakowski.
"I've heard everything from response times being non-existent, meaning no ambulance showed up or in a delayed response of over an hour," Nowakowski said. "If you have a medical emergency and you're calling 911, you're expecting something to show up to respond to your medical emergency."
Nowakowski filed a letter with the common council asking officials from American Medical Response (AMR). The councilmember wants AMR officials to attend a financial committee meeting in September to address a variety of concerns.
"We really need to get down to the nitty-gritty of why AMR's response is a lackluster or not appearing at all," Nowakowski said.
In addition to concerns over response time, AMR's contract with the city is a topic Nowakowski wants to address with the company.
"AMR was actually as operating with an expired and old contract from 2021," Nowakowski said. "So once we had saw that, our staff was able to dig in deeper, I realized that there's something else going on here."
With questions over response time, Nowakowski said he wants the common council to explore all options, including a city-operated ambulance service.
"I think there could be a lot on the table," Nowkowski said. "I think that you're going to start seeing council members that are saying, 'Well, what about us having our own service?'"
Within the last year, Erie and Niagara County have established their own ambulance service to fill gaps in emergency response.
Erie County spent about $4.6M to establish the service and is expected to spend $2M per year to maintain the service.
"I think this is something that we can't keep our eyes off of," Nowakowski said "We really have to bring into focus points, because people deserve to feel safe but people ultimately deserve to get helped in a timely manner."
A spokesperson for AMR provided the following statement:
"While the exclusive operating agreement has ended between the City of Buffalo and AMR Western New York, we continue to provide vital emergency medical services to the city we call home. We do respect the request for proposal (RFP) process, which is why we submitted a response to the city’s RFP shortly after it was distributed in August 2021. Although the process was halted, AMR Western New York continues to serve our community in times of need.
AMR Western New York prioritizes responding to high-acuity calls, such as traumatic injuries and cardiac arrest, and believes our response times to these calls fall within industry standards.
Due to prioritizing the most severe cases, lower acuity calls may result in longer response times. AMR Western New York remains committed to the City of Buffalo and continues to make extensive investments in our staff and infrastructure such as development and recruiting programs to respond to a personnel shortage affecting EMS systems nationally.
These include our award-winning Earn While You Learn program and funding paramedic education and training through Erie Community College (ECC). In fact, 17 new Paramedics are set to graduate from the ECC program in August, which will strengthen our ability to continue to meet the emergency medical needs of Buffalo.
AMR Western New York invests in Buffalo because it is our community. Our first responders not only work here, but they live here, and they continually make sacrifices to serve the people they love.
AMR Western New York remains dedicated to collaborating with city leadership, allied agencies, and healthcare facilities to continue to improve EMS services to the City of Buffalo. We look forward to continuing this conversation and speaking with the Buffalo Common Council Finance Committee in September."