9 February 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — On Wednesday, Sedgwick County Commissioners approved the submission of a $1.8 million FEMA grant for four new ambulances and four additional EMS support vehicles.
“Our call volume keeps going up every year,” Sedgwick County Commissioner David Dennis said.
Dennis says since 2006, Sedgwick County has seen a 34% increase in calls to EMS. In contrast, the county lost 33% of its staff from 2019-2021.
“We’re somewhere around 18-19 paramedics short right now,” Dennis said.
“I think we’re at 70-75% of the recent staffing,” Sedgwick County Commissioner Ryan Baty said.
Baty says there’s still room to grow when it comes to competitive wages and EMS staff stability.
“I think we can get to a much more operational efficiency at 80% staffing capacity with the numbers that I’ve seen,” Baty said.
Meanwhile, Dennis says a county program that helps EMT’s become paramedics could further expedite the hiring process.
“We’ll pay for their classes; we’ll pay for their education,” Dennis said. “We’re looking at about a year from now, we should be fully staffed.”
But that’s not the only issue Sedgwick County EMS currently faces.
Since 2006, Sedgwick County has only added two vehicles to its EMS fleet. However, Baty says the current wait time for a new vehicle has gone up from six to nine months to two to three years.
“The challenge in the EMS fleet really kind of matches and mirrors the challenges that we’ve seen in the entire automobile industry: supply chain issues,” Baty said.
“We ordered, I think, six of them here almost a year ago, and we still don’t have all of them,” Dennis said.
Both commissioners say there’s no timeline just yet for when the FEMA grant will go through and when the new vehicles, if approved, could arrive.