BELLEVILLE — Belleville’s Emergency Medical Services has merged with its counterpart in New Glarus, creating a bigger and more effective emergency agency that is more up to the task of swift response both in rural and more urban areas.
“This collaborative demonstrates that even in our small communities, high quality emergency medical care with quick response times is possible if we come together,” said New Glarus Village President Roger Truttman, one of many area officials speaking at a news conference Monday to announce the formation of the new, combined Sugar River EMS.
The two districts had been collaborating in a less official partner arrangement that amounted to a one-year trial of the working relationship and its impact on response times, resources, and desperately needed staff. The agreement announced Monday codifies that relationship; and creates a department that includes the entire villages of Belleville and New Glarus, the Town of Montrose, Exeter, and New Glarus; along with partial coverage in the towns of Oregon and Brooklyn.
Praising the pact as an example of intergovernmental cooperation that goes beyond mere promises of working together, officials said each community will have “an equal voice at the table.”
“It’s getting harder and harder for communities in rural Wisconsin to find people to respond when their neighbors need an ambulance,” said Belleville EMS Chief Chris Backes. “As this region continues to grow, we want to make sure families don’t have to sit around and wait 20 or even 30 minutes for emergent care.”
The new Sugar River EMS District will include fully staffed ambulances responding from two stations in both Belleville and New Glarus. As such, the highly trained EMS responders on the new department will have plenty of support from both the larger New Glarus and Belleville fire departments; and their life-saving equipment. Once the department is fully integrated, it will have about 150 personnel, many of them still volunteers, officials said. That is up from the about 80 staff the department works with now.
The official launch date for the new entity is June 30., and it will have an annual operating budget of about $1.3 million. Green County Sheriff Cody Kanable, who attended the new department’s launch on Monday, said it was a positive step for first-response in the county.
“Overall, it’s a very good thing for the community,” said Kanable. “I think it will provide people with a higher level of care throughout.”
Officials also noted that Sugar River EMS will retain a long-standing relationship between the Belleville-based department and the medical school at UW Madison. That has allowed students to learn on the job, with some even going on to become medical doctors. In fact, Michael Spinger, who teaches emergency medicine on the UW faculty, will serve as the new Sugar River EMS Medical Director.
“Emergency services are pillars in their communities,” he said, adding that collaboration helps ensure quality and efficiency over such critical local government services. “EMS is sometimes the only way (rural) community members can access health care.”
By summer, officials said, the new department should have four ambulances on the road, along with two ‘rapid-response’ vehicles to “expediate emergency medical care across southern Dane and northern Green Counties,” according to a press release.