EAST LONGMEADOW – Following a budget meeting last week East Longmeadow has announced its intent to gain a new ambulance service ran by the towns Fire Department.

Currently, American Medical Response (AMR) provides East Longmeadow’s ambulance service. 

With the new ambulance service, Chief Paul Morrissette believes that the transition will provide better quality control and management.

“AMR isn’t always familiar with the town, sometimes they can be short staffed.  Here, it’s our employees, all of them live in town and a lot of them grew up in town and went to school here.  The quality of care is higher because they have a vested interest in the community,” Morrissette said.

Currently, most of East Longmeadow’s firefighters are Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) as well.  Some have discussed going through the training to become a Paramedic.  

Morrissette says the department is looking to hire four firefighter paramedics in 2018, and eight in 2019.

“The service isn’t typically a money saver, but the level of service and quality of care is higher.  It’s also a step toward getting 24-hour fire protection; right now we have 12 -hour.  Most of our calls are between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., but we have close to 2,000 EMS runs a year.”

East Longmeadow’s Fire Department will be working with AMR over the first few years to transition into taking over the responsibility of the ambulance service.