Preston and Lanesboro team up to sustain ambulance service

At a September 2021 Lanesboro City Council meeting, interim Ambulance Director Dan Jaquith declared, “We are on the verge of closing.” There just aren’t enough volunteers. Preston ambulance director Ryan Throckmorton said a conversation between the Preston and Lanesboro Ambulance Services began a few years back. In 2021 they started working together. Both staff and members of the city councils started talking seriously about dealing with the challenge of recruiting, training, and retaining an adequate number of volunteers. Both city councils were in unanimous support of making necessary changes.

Throckmorton addressed the Preston City Council later in September 2021. The Lanesboro City Council had voted during a special meeting to transfer their licensed area to the City of Preston. Preston agreed to operate a substation in Lanesboro and staff it with EMTs from Lanesboro. The Preston City Council voted unanimously to accept the transfer of the licensed area from Lanesboro. Throckmorton is the director of the Preston EMS, which now also includes the former Lanesboro licensed area.

Lanesboro Mayor Jason Resseman shared, “What is good for Lanesboro is good for our neighbors. Ryan Throckmorton is a great resource for Lanesboro; I look forward to working with his staff.” Resseman added that the city of Lanesboro would be grateful for the opportunity to discuss sustaining ambulance services on a county and state level. “Our main goal is to provide service for members of our communities.” He went on to say that this is not just a local or state problem, but a national problem for rural communities, noting, “The volunteers we have are greatly appreciated for their service, as they are not doing it for a paycheck.”

Preston has two ambulances and Lanesboro has one ambulance. Per capita fees, which are used to update equipment for the ambulance service, will apply equally to cities and townships in the entire licensed area. Sometimes the Preston crew will provide service in what used to be the Lanesboro area and vice versa.

Throckmorton said, “Services across the state will have to work together to make the system sustainable, as most are struggling to recruit and retain volunteer staff. We need to be progressive and work through the changes.” Preston City Administrator Joe Hoffman agreed; in order to sustain the EMS, they are going to have to work together.

The EMS Regulatory Board is the Minnesota state agency that licenses ambulance services. Each service is licensed to provide care services in an assigned primary service area defined by geographic boundaries.

Throckmorton believes the public experience under this new structure will be little changed. Wait times may increase by a few minutes, but will be essentially the same. Throckmorton noted their five-to-eight-minute response time is much better than other areas in Minnesota and across the nation.

In 2019 the Minnesota Department of Health reported that 80% of the state’s ambulance services rely on unpaid volunteers and 60% of those services are short staffed. Volunteers provide hours of their time for training, on-call time, and service. Throckmorton believes the structure of EMS in Minnesota is on the verge of collapse, that the system as structured will fail. Ambulance services staffed with volunteers are fighting to survive. The ability of our communities to work together is a first step to create a more sustainable service for both communities.

Minnesota doesn’t consider emergency medical service an “essential” service, as it does fire and police services.

Throckmorton expects it would cost about $550,000 to staff just one ambulance truck with paid staff. Without tax subsidies, just two or three ambulances could be staffed in Fillmore County with paid staff. There currently are six ambulance services and 11 ambulances in Fillmore County. The unpaid volunteers are now “subsidizing” the system, keeping it operational. Most volunteers have full-time jobs, families, and other obligations; yet they still volunteer their time. We rely on the goodwill of volunteers.