Mahoning ambulance will help cover Weatherly

Mahoning Ambulance has offered to cover shifts for Weatherly Ambulance if it is forced to cut back its in-service hours due to budget constraints.

Weatherly Ambulance Association officials recently appealed to the public for help in closing a $75,000 per-year budget shortfall.

The ambulance serves Weatherly borough and Packer, Lehigh and Lausanne townships in Carbon County.

One proposal the ambulance has floated is to go out of service during the overnight hours Sunday through Thursday.

If that takes place, Mahoning Ambulance would be willing to fill those shifts, according to Mark Ruch, Mahoning’s assistant director of operations.

“We know they’re going through a hard time,” Ruch said. “As long as they give us enough heads up that we can schedule people to get up here with one of our ambulances to cover the times that they are out of service for their coverage area.”

There are no definite plans for Weatherly to go out of service right now. Ruch said an official from Mahoning visited the Weatherly Ambulance board last week, and they plan to discuss the idea further.

Mahoning would provide basic life support coverage for the borough — the same as Weatherly Ambulance Association. For more serious calls, it would still have to call an advanced life support unit like APTS in Hazleton or Lehighton Ambulance.

Ruch said Mahoning uses a mix of paid and volunteer staff to cover its hours. Mahoning is staffed by volunteers from midnight-6 a.m. and paid staff the rest of the day.

The rig serving Weatherly would likely be staffed by volunteers, he said. That means the only expense for the ambulance would be fuel and maintenance for its vehicles.

“It won’t be a major financial burden for us to come up here, especially if we can staff with volunteers,” he said.

Mayor/council President Tom Connors said if the arrangement indeed takes place, he expects it would only be temporary.

He said he would be in favor of anything that allows the borough to receive round-the-clock ambulance service, which is what residents want.

“If that’s what the board chooses to do, at least we have coverage for our residents, which is most important,” he said.

Connors said he feels Mahoning should be compensated for any fuel it uses answering calls in Weatherly.

Resident Beth Parker wanted to know what council is doing in the long term to help the Weatherly ambulance. She asked council whether it would support a tax on residents to fund ambulance service.

Council member Joseph Cyburt said it was too early to decide on whether a tax was necessary. Harold Farrow said he would like a tax on each resident rather than a property tax.

“I would like to see some type of per capita tax where everyone has to pay toward the ambulance, not just the property owner,” he said.

Parker also asked if council would consider waiving the ambulance’s utility bill, as the owner of both the water and electric utilities in the borough.

Connors said the savings would be minimal, and it would come at the expense of taxpayers who would be left paying the bill.

“I think there’s more important things to be discussed ahead of time,” he said.

“When you look at the savings, it’s not really enough to make much of a difference in the beginning.”