Supervisors consider ambulance options, especially for autopsy transport

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A discussion on how to provide transportation of bodies for autopsies veered into a more general discussion on ambulance service in general at the Floyd County Board of Supervisors meeting Monday.

Autopsies are at least temporarily no longer available in Mason City, so bodies that require an autopsy must now be transported to the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office in Ankeny.

AMR ambulance’s new contract with Charles City sets the rate for a body transport at $417.49, plus a standard $28.11 per mile that it charges for all services.

“You’re looking at just under $5,000 to take a body to Ankeny at the rates we have listed on that sheet,” said Dawn Staudt, AMR’s station supervisor in Charles City, referring to the rates listed in the Charles City contract.

Although AMR currently has no contract that includes Floyd County, Staudt said her boss, Mark Corley, AMR’s regional director, said she could do body transports for $15 per mile, which would make the cost about $2,500 to take a body to Ankeny.

“In all honesty, we don’t care if we never do another autopsy transport, ever,” she said. “It’s an inconvenience to have a staff member and ambulance out of service and it’s not cost-productive for either party.”

Still, Staudt told the Press after the meeting, she wants to provide the service if it’s possible.

“My only reason for making an effort is for family and law enforcement, so they don’t have to wait on a scene for hours waiting for someone to pick up a body,” she said. “I want to help. I want to do what I can.”

Supervisor Roy Schwickerath, a former Charles City fire chief and the county’s representative on an Ambulance Commission that includes representatives from the city, county and Floyd County Medical Center, said he asked for the topic to be put on Monday’s workshop agenda.

He said funeral homes can transport bodies, but he had talked with John Weishaar, owner of Hauser Weishaar Funeral Home, and Weishaar said they didn’t have the staff or an interest in providing transportation for autopsies.

Schwickerath said he talked with the executive director of the Iowa Funeral Home Directors Association, Suzanne Gebel, and she said it is a common problem that counties are facing.

Schwickerath said he would continue investigating options for body transport for autopsies, but the discussion then moved to the status of ambulance service in general.

Staudt explained that the new contract with Charles City requires that a paramedic-level advanced life support (ALS) ambulance be available to serve Charles City and the St. Charles Fire District at all times.

She said she will try to continue to respond to all 911 calls to AMR from outside the contracted service area, but if an ambulance with a basic life support (BLS)-rated crew is sent out on a call and then another call comes in, she can’t send the ALS-rated ambulance out of the district unless there is another paramedic available, and there is a limited number of people available to the service with paramedic certification.

As far as the BLS-rated ambulances, it’s getting harder and harder to find people who are willing to be on standby for $3 an hour in case they are needed, she said. Those people are finding full-time or part-time jobs, which prevents them from being on call.

Staudt told the Press after the meeting that even though AMR did not and still does not have a contract to provide services to county areas outside Charles City and the St. Charles Fire District, such as Cowell and Floyd, the main difference now is that the contract with Charles City requires that an ALS-rated ambulance with a paramedic remain available inside the contract service area.

Outside of the contracted service area, “there is no guarantee of anything at this point,” she said.

The new city contract with AMR eliminates fees that the city charged the private ambulance company for dispatch services, for housing ambulances inside the fire station and for providing firefighter drivers.

It also includes a $50,000 payment this year from the city to AMR to help support the service.

Staudt said a contract that included the county and possibly Floyd County Medical Center would improve the situation if they also included funding sources.

“If there’s more money I can staff more strucks and give a better guarantee of response,” she said.

County Auditor Gloria Carr urged the Ambulance Commission to become more active and involved in the discussion, noting that the county has not had a contract with an ambulance service since the last contract expired in 2011.