Contrary to rumors, Priority Care Ambulance Service is still
maintaining a station at Hilltop, said owner Brian Gustafson on
Monday.
“I think the confusion comes into play where we dropped that
designation of that specific unit,” Gustafson said. He explained
the Hilltop station in Keating Township had been dispatched under
the code of MA7.
“Now we use one of the Smethport numbers,” Gustafson said,
explaining the Hilltop ambulance is now referred to at MA16A or
MA16B. “It’s a different number, but the truck’s in the same
place.
“That truck kind of goes wherever it is needed,” he added. “If
the Smethport truck is out, then it might be down there. Sometimes
it’s down here during the day.
“If the truck up there (at Hilltop) is out, then we cover it
from down here (in Smethport) or in Bradford,” Gustafson said.
“There’s no more MA7,” he reiterated, explaining the change was
simply with the dispatch designation. “It’s a 16 number and people
aren’t used to hearing that.”
As far as what the future holds for the Hilltop station,
Gustafson said he doesn’t have any plans to make additional
changes.
“It’s going to depend on what we do with the Bradford station
and Smethport station,” he said. The Bradford station is manned,
while the other two stations have on-call staff. If the Smethport
station goes to being manned in the future, that may change the
need for a third station at Hilltop, he said.
But he was quick to add that wouldn’t impact residents in the
response time of an ambulance. With the station having on-call
personnel, “by the time they come to the station and get the
ambulance, we could have people there” from the manned station in
Smethport, Gustafson said.
He explained the reason Priority Care has the Hilltop station is
that the volunteer fire department opted to get out of the service
last year because of a lack of volunteers. When the ambulance was
dispatched and there were not enough volunteers to man it, there
was a 10-minute delay before another service was paged to take the
call, Gustafson explained.
“We’ve eliminated that 10 minute delay,” he said. “As soon as
that dispatch goes out, we’ll have an ambulance on the road.”
He urged anyone with a health emergency to call for help rather
than risk driving themselves to the hospital.
“You’ll have paramedics on the ambulance,” he said. “That’s
better than driving in a car. When those ambulances come, they come
with the equipment to make a difference. You don’t have that
equipment in your car.
“It’s essentially the same as having a small emergency room
there – regardless of whose ambulance service is it,” Gustafson
said. “They are better off to use the ambulance than to risk not
using it.”
Beginning last year, Priority Care and Bradford City Fire
Department ambulance service each submitted proposals to serve area
municipalities. Bradford City had agreements with Foster, Corydon,
Bradford, Lafayette and Corydon townships, and Lewis Run Borough,
to serve those communities.
Priority Care ended up filing civil lawsuits for unfair
competition for being excluded from operating in those areas. Since
then, the municipal governments have all allowed private services
to compete in those areas.
Priority Care is still working with the government of Bradford
City to come to an agreement for operating in the city.
