PHILLIPS – The superintendent of schools is questioning the decision by Franklin Memorial Hospital to close its ambulance service here, leaving Phillips school to wait longer for help in emergencies.

The hospital announced this week that it is consolidating four of its ambulance services into one and closing the fifth, AMPS ambulance service in Phillips, as of July 1, 2005. The reason, said hospital President Rick Batt, is efficiency and economy.

The service will be called NorthStar and incorporate what is now LifeStar in Farmington, Community Emergency Services in Livermore, Sugarloaf Ambulance and Rescue in Carrabassett Valley and Rangeley.

Batt visited all five services Wednesday to introduce the new NorthStar director David Robie.

SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark, an emergency medical technician with AMPS, asked Batt who will respond to the Phillips school.

Phillips and Avon “will be serviced by the closest available ambulance based at the three sites in the vicinity,” according to the hospital’s press release. They are Farmington, Carrabassett Valley and Rangeley, said Mike Senecal, representing the hospital.

“You start holding your breath, and I’ll tell you when 25 minutes is up,” Clark said. “The effect on the community will be fairly profound.”

Batt told the nine, mostly volunteer members of AMPS gathered at the Phillips Fire Department, home base for AMPS, that when the hospital took over the services about nine years ago, it was with the stipulation the operation would break even financially. When federal funding decreased ambulance subsidies for Medicare patients, it became necessary to reconfigure the system to maintain the hospital’s financial viability, he said.

Despite its nonprofit status, he said, the hospital needs to maintain a reserve for capital expenditures.

The towns served by the services came to the hospital asking for help, Batt explained. Not a single service was making money or breaking even, he added though several members corrected him saying that AMPS was, in fact, was profitable at the time the hospital took control.

Batt told members that the hospital has a commitment to quality, and he promised that they will “operate a quality service in the area that meets the community’s needs.”

Shelby Rousseau of AMPS said, “It doesn’t seem like a quality service. We’re putting a Band-Aid on a wound that isn’t even ours.”

Robie, who lives in Madrid Township, said there’s nothing to say the service won’t be reinstated in the future.

“We’re trying to create a regional service,” Batt said. “Local services will sputter and fail. There are not enough communities with deep enough pockets to be able to afford it.”

Clark agreed that the best thing for the region would be for the hospital to control a regional service. He admitted the service is more professional and billing has improved.

“The needs of the communities here are real,” Batt said. “It’s sort of a matter of trust. You’ve known the hospital, we’ve delivered a quality product. We haven’t left anyone stranded,” he said.