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Bushkill Emergency Corps is a non-profit organization comprised
of volunteer staff and paid staff. All our staff members are caring, knowledgeable, and accessible. We are
always willing to take the time to go over all of your options and treat you as a person, not just a patient.
At Bushkill, we pride ourselves on our patient service. We have knowledgeable personnel, who provide the most current
pre-hospital treatment available.
We've created this web site for our residents
as well as our patients. It includes specific information on our organization and our staff along with emergency
preparedness information.
The following article appeared in the Pocono Record's Community News on 5/18/07:
Bushkill Ambulance Corps faithfully responds to the call
Wayne Witkowski
Community News Editor
May 18, 2007
It is around this time every year that Bushkill Ambulance Corps, which serves
northern Monroe and part of Pike counties, faces a critical period.
With four locations and a workforce of more than
40, the organization is preparing for one of its busiest weekends of the year and its heaviest work schedule over the next
three months.
"This is the lull before the storm," said corps Captain Ray Felmley.
And next week is Emergency Medical Services week as members of the group venture to schools, nurseries
and child-care centers to give lectures on the work they do around the clock, seven days a week, and the importance of exercising
caution.
Right after Memorial Day, the organization sends out about 18,000 mailers to the area asking for donations.
Felmley said they get about a 10 percent response and the generosity of those donors is vital as the organization is non-profit
over its 42 years of existence. "We rely heavily on township donations and communities," said Felmley, who pointed out that
half of the staff, particularly certified EMTs and paramedics, are salaried while the other half is volunteer. Most salaried
workers also put in volunteer hours as well, said Bushkill Ambulance Corps President Debbie Kulick.
"I'm really proud
of the fact that our organization has served as a feeder for careers — five who became doctors, and countless nurses,"
said Kulick, who is joined by Vice President Lisa Localzo and Treasurer Chris Cramer on the board of directors. "They found
a calling in life from doing this."
And they've helped save countless lives over the years.
Felmley, who has
served as captain for 10 years, said that typically there are "five to 10 calls a day" and about 3,000 calls a year. It's
a great increase from its first two years when there were 140 emergency trips — during that 24-month span. In the late
1980s, there were 1,000 calls a year and members of the corps said in reports published in the Pocono Record that they expected
that number to nearly double over the following few years.
Back then, there were 375 sponsoring families with help
from road drives and sponsorships. Walter Bensley was the first captain.
Along with the increased work from population
growth, expenses have gone up as the corps serves many ends from auto accidents to household emergencies to heart attacks
and strokes. Along with the summer, the calls pick up again during the winter with skiing accidents.
Felmley pointed
out that a defibrillator the organization just purchased cost $20,000.
And a fully equipped ambulance nowadays costs
$150,000, a lot different from the $750 the organization spent on a 1958 Pontiac ambulance when it began. The organization
currently has four vans, including three four-wheel drive units.
"And Medicare has adjusted the way it pays," said
Kulick. "Many other insurers often follow suit."
Kulick said her organization transports all 911 calls, with Suburban
EMS out of Stroudsburg as a secondary provider.
"When our personnel get there (to an emergency scene), they know what
to do and work very well with other support agencies," said Kulick, who said she has been Bushkill Ambulance Corps president
for 25 of the 34 years she has been involved. "We're very lucky we have a very good workforce that combine volunteer with
career work. Here everyone understands they're on the same team and work as one. It's a flawless operation.
"I'm just
as enthused and inspired today as my first day. I've seen a lot of people come and go, Even people who do it for a short time
find it a life-changing experience."
Certainly, the organization has come a long way from that July 15, 1965 day when
28 residents met at the Bushkill Reformed Church with the pastor — Rev. Paul Van Elk. Fifteen men had completed a First
Aid course and the ambulance corps was incorporated a month later.
"Back then, they were just learning about administering
CPR," said Kulick, who also is a certified CPR instructor. "My very first patient had congestive heart failure. Today, it's
a routine call with medications en route to the hospital.
"And we introduced Advanced Life Support," said Kulick. "We
have met the challenges and modified our operations."
By the late 1980s, the organization added facilities, primarily
to serve the needs of housing those personnel on call. A Marshalls Creek facility, donated by Fernwood Resort owner Peter
Ahnert, opened in 1989 and months later, an office hub opened behind Foxmoor Village.
The other facilities are at Winona
Falls Road and a garage facility at the Municipal Building of Lehman Township. Kulick said that township is a "significant
contributor" to the fundraising drive.
Many of the personnel involved entire families. Felmley said that along with
his wife, Nancy, a certified EMT, both sons are involved in Bushkill Ambulance Corps — Ryan and Ray Jr., as well as
Ray Jr.'s wife, Michelle.
"We're looking to focus on what the future growth is; if not, you're caught short," said
Kulick. "We know our strength is in our (sense of) organization."
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The following article appeared in the Pocono Record on 1/21/08:
Closed-door meeting arranged to smooth out EMS protocol
By MELISSA A. CESAREO
January 21, 2008
Four emergency medical service entities will have a private session to hammer out
an agreement before meeting with Middle Smithfield supervisors at 9 a.m. Monday, Feb. 4.
The meeting was set up after the township agreed to postpone the deadline for an
agreement from Feb. 1 to March 1.
About 20 EMS personnel and residents met with township supervisors for more than
two hours Thursday to try to come to an agreement for EMS providers in Middle Smithfield.
At the meeting were Ray Felmly of Bushkill Emergency Corps, whose long-standing
contract with the township expired midway through last year, Barry Albertson Jr. of Suburban Emergency Medical Services, Scott
Dreisbach of Marshalls Creek Fire Company, and Sandee Freeman and John Ronaldo of Med Mobile EMS LLC.
Gary Hoffman, director of communications at the Monroe County Control Center, and
John Kloss, director of operations at Eastern PA EMS Council, were also on hand to address negotiations.
The supervisors presented a "Memorandum of Understanding for designated first due
ALS and BLS provider for Middle Smithfield Township" and an "ALS-BLS Joint Pre-hospital Services Agreement," both of which
were drawn by township solicitor Jennifer Wise based on the recommendations of the EMS System Review, the control center and
the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
The plan is a proposed six-month pilot period, during which Bushkill Emergency Corps
will remain the township's first due ALS and BLS provider. When they are tied up on calls, or otherwise unavailable, the control
center will dispatch the next available provider as the need arises.
Differences of opinion, semantics and some contract wording changes notwithstanding,
all four EMS providers affirmed their commitment to resolve conflicts and come to an equitable agreement to above all else
"provide residents and visitors with optimal patient care and expedient response times," as stated from the Memorandum of
Understanding.
According to the new agreement, the target response time of any EMS crew will be
five minutes from the time the call is dispatched to the time an ambulance is en route to the call.
All agreed that this time was practical and could be achieved during this pilot
period. Supervisor Scott Schaller expressed concern about timely responses and is hoping the response time will decrease as
the program develops and matures.
Most disputed in the proposal were funding, various insurance and bonding fees,
the question of who is responsible for such fees and autonomy of the EMS providers.
To summarize the current situation, the township supervisors and the EMS companies,
both paid and volunteer, are trying to find the best way to provide for the emergency medical needs of the township.
"That is the primary goal of everyone here," stated Schaller, to nods and words
of agreement all around. One thing everyone present agreed on was that, regardless of discrepancies or conflicts, the township
residents are covered, and will be covered in the event of an emergency, whether there is a contract or not.
According to the present wording of the contract, Middle Smithfield supervisors
would pre-designate the second and subsequent due responders. Hoffman told the supervisors, "What control wants is let's go
with this plan to not designate a second due ... just tell us who the primary is and let us utilize the closest available
unit" among the four for subsequent calls.
Freeman, of Med Mobile, said, "The control center is the best designated organization,
I think, to say who goes where. We can all be on call, but control needs to put us where we're needed."
One Bushkill Emergency Corps member, who is a Lehman Township resident, expressed
concern over consequences of a "snowball effect" that might occur if the control center pulls units from their home base to
provide mutual aid to neighboring communities based on the second-response agreement, thereby leaving their area unprotected
and having to call in yet another township to go to a call in that town.
Marshalls Creek fire department felt in the past that they've not been recognized
as an official BLS provider and have received negative feedback for going to calls out of their jurisdiction.
"We're here to fill in a gap, not to get criticized that we jumped a call or 'it's
not our call.' I know it's a business and there's bills to be paid, but we're not here for the money, we're all here for the
same thing: patient care," Dreisbach said.
As far as funding, as the system stands now, when an ambulance goes into service
to transport a patient, the patient's insurance company is billed for the service. If the patient is a "subscriber" to the
ambulance service, the service accepts the insurance reimbursement as payment in full. If a subscriber patient has no or inadequate
insurance, the ambulance company ends up with the expense. These costs include medical supplies, drugs, payroll, insurances,
fuel and maintenance of the vehicle, among other things.
To a volunteer squad, such as Marshalls Creek or Bushkill, these non-reimbursed
costs can be crippling. Schaller said that the supervisors allow for an EMS donation in their budget and that they will distribute
those funds unused in 2007 along with the funds for 2008 once an agreement has been cemented and they know where and how to
make the distribution. When asked if there is any plan to recoup some of the costs by tax increase, Schaller replied, "Not
at this time, no."
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