Members of the Tompkins County Council of Governments on Thursday heard some details – and statistics – outlining an impending “collapse” of community-based, emergency service providers in Tompkins County.
Lee Shurtleff, Director of EMS Services in Tompkins County, presented an overview of statistics compiled with the assistance Cornell students analyzing the status of Emergency Medical Service resources in Tompkins County, an overarching assessment of everything from staffing levels to the needs and demographics they handle. Essentially, as staffing levels have been strained (a third of volunteer providers, Shurtleff said, have been lost since 2013), demand has gone up, an issue compounded by a lack of volunteers, the need for taxpayers to start paying for services (and already pained local budgets), increasing call volumes and increasing expectations of the services first responders should provide.