After years of minimal staffing and low budgets, Hopedale’s fire chief said this week that he has found a way to double the town’s number of firefighters at no cost to taxpayers.
“The runs are coming in, the staffing isn’t,” Fire Chief Thomas Daige told selectmen this week, referring to emergency calls that need firefighters and EMTs. “You know this, I know this, we’ve been trying to find a way to add staffing.”
The chief's solution is called inter-facility transports, and it involves patients who require medical transportation from the hospital back to their homes or assisted living facilities. Because the transportation is required, Hopedale will typically be paid for the rides through insurance plans.
Daige said he’s been trying to secure inter-facility transports for years, and just recently “broke though” with Milford Regional Medical Center. People in need of the service wait for up to three hours for a ride home through the hospital’s current ambulance agreements with private companies, Daige said.