MEXICO – Med-Care Ambulance is sporting a new look with the latest addition to its fleet of ambulances.
At a press conference Wednesday morning, Med-Care Director Dean Milligan showed off the $80,000 ambulance, the inside of which resembles a hospital emergency room.
“Now we have an ambulance that’s guaranteed to have a minimum of five years of service, whereas, in the past, we’ve had to take care of other people’s maintenance issues,” Milligan said.
Unable to afford new ambulances, Med-Care made do with what it could get.
The fleet consists of a 1999 van ambulance, two 1998 and one 2000 box-style ambulances, plus the new addition received last month.
“Every single one of our ambulances has over 100,000 miles on them,” he said.
The Mexico company provides emergency medical response service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to 11 towns over more than 500 square miles of Franklin and Oxford counties.
With 60 employees, Med-Care covers the towns of Andover, Byron, Canton, Carthage, Dixfield, Hanover, Mexico, Newry, Peru, Roxbury, Rumford.
The 2005 ambulance, Milligan said, “is a tremendous asset for us, and the beginning of a process to bring our equipment up to the level that it needs to be, in order to sustain the volume of activity that we’re called upon to do.”
As of Wednesday, he said, Med-Care is averaging nine calls a day, and has responded to 1,792 calls. He expects 3,285 calls this year, up 474 from last year.
“Based on projected figures, our call volume is up 17 percent over last year,” he said.
The new ambulance was purchased from Sugarloaf Rescue Vehicles in Carrabassett Valley.
The vehicle cost $50,000 less than a brand new ambulance because Med-Care took its 1997 aluminum ambulance box, had it re-primed, repainted and retrofitted to 2005 specifications, features and options, then mounted on a 2005 cab and chassis.
“This is the first ambulance we’ve received without it having 30,000 to 60,000 miles on it,” Milligan said.
Additionally, the service added six newly trained paramedics to its staff of 19 medics.
This enables Med-Care to provide three paramedics per shift for its three shifts a day, but left them with five intermediate EMTs to complement 24 basic EMTs and six drivers.
“Our next goal is to pump our basics into intermediate classes in the fall. We’ve made a substantial investment, but this will have no impact on the towns’ subsidies,” Milligan said.
“Everything has been paid for and absorbed by our operating budget,” he added.
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