ROANOKE FIRE-RESCUE MERGER NOT AT HAND

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993                   TAG: 9301260381
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
ROANOKE FIRE-RESCUE MERGER NOT AT HAND
City Manager Bob Herbert said Monday that volunteer rescue squad members will remain the "heart and soul" of Roanoke's emergency medical services system.
For the immediate future, there will be no merger of the EMS system with the city Fire Department.
City officials hope to increase, not diminish, the role of the volunteers, as some have feared, Herbert said.
Council members James Harvey and Howard Musser said they don't want the city to do anything to undercut the volunteers.
Council authorized the city manager to sign a new contract with the volunteers so they can remain part of the EMS system.
Herbert assured council the volunteers are needed to work with the city's paid emergency-rescue workers and firefighters in the combined system.
Councilman William White believes the city could answer emergency-rescue calls faster and save money if its EMS system were merged with the Fire Department. The volunteers would still be needed in a merged system, he said. But some volunteers don't like the idea of merger.
"It would be the end of the volunteers," said Sidney Robertson, president of Roanoke Emergency Medical Services Inc.
Roanoke Emergency Services was created by the merger of the Roanoke and Williamson Road life-saving crews.
Firefighters at three fire stations already answer emergency calls on a first-response basis at Stations No. 4, 11 and 14 in outlying areas of the city. In these areas, the firefighters provide assistance until full-time paramedics or other emergency-medical personnel arrive or they determine that no other help is needed.
Herbert said the city will start a similar program at Station No. 13 on Monday in the Peters Creek Road area, where the average response is 8.2 minutes. For the rest of the city, the response time is 5.2 minutes.
An advisory committee on emergency-medical services recommended that the city keep its current arrangement, with the Emergency Medical Services Department continuing to monitor and supervise the system.
Herbert said the volunteers provide about $800,000 a year in free services - more than the $650,000 cost for the paid rescue workers.
He said the city has an internal task force studying the issue of whether changes are needed in the EMS system.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB