Last week, the Carroll County Board of Supervisors offered a compensation package to Carroll County Ambulance paramedic, Darrell Baker, for working as an intermediate director while they search for a permanent replacement. Baker accepted the offer of $31.74 per hour for the extra time he put in over and above his regular duties from Aug. 21 through Sept. 15 and then $1,000 per bi-weekly pay period for the remainder of the time he holds the position. Baker says that some of the extra time has been spent diving into the department records and needs and finding out what has been going on and what has to be done. One of the first orders of business was taking care of the county-owned equipment.
He said they had a bad blood pressure cuff and a heart monitor that needed to be replaced and they were able to get a used heart monitor from Farmington down from about $5,500 to $4,000. He also discussed a recurring issue with another ambulance that he thought the supervisors were made aware of, but found out that they did not know it hadn’t been fixed.
The alarm does not go off for a week or two, but then starts up again. It can be deactivated, but Baker is currently working to find out more about the impact of that and to verify what he has been told about the system and that it will still operate properly, only the alarm would be silenced. The department was also in need of training materials and additional training hours according to Baker. The state requires specific training on medical manikins, but the department cannot practice procedures because they lack that specific piece of equipment. He is currently looking into the cost and availability of the special manikins. Baker adds that they will be using the training tool a minimum of once each quarter for a variety of different types of personnel training. According to Baker, staff member’s recertification and Continuing Education Units (CEUs) required by the state need to be addressed. He prefers that department members go to the larger cities that offer training sessions.
Baker says they are being proactive on this and getting everybody up to speed as quickly as possible and will meet the state requirements by the deadline.
