Queen Creek’s first town ambulance service rolls out on Friday.
The Emergency Transportation Service has been in the works for 16 months after the Queen Creek Town Council voted in April 2022 to create and fund the service. The ETS is part of the Queen Creek Fire & Medical Department.
“On Friday, we are going to be starting up with three full-time ambulances. Those are 24 hours, seven-day-a-week units,” said QCFMD Chief Vance Gray. “Then, in probably two to three weeks, we will be bringing on our fourth full-time unit.”
In all, ETS will have five ambulances with one placed in each fire station. Four of the units will be active while the fifth will act as a backup.
Twelve paramedics and 12 EMTs were hired for the service.
“They’ve been onboarded since July 24, and they have been going through a six-week training program – an orientation program – to get ready before they are launched into the field,” Gray said.
In April 2022, QCFMD set a July 2023 target date to get the service on the street, Gray said and added that the target “was flexible and could slide either way depending on the equipment that was arriving or the personnel getting hired.”
Like the Queen Creek Police Department before it, supply chain issues have caused delays in delivery of all the ambulances the town has purchased, Gray said.
QCFMD Chief Vance Gray
Town of Queen Creek
“We’re still waiting on some of the ambulance units to be delivered,” Gray said. “What we have done to deal with that is our vendors supplied us with two loaner ambulances, so they are doing their best to accommodate us.”
Since 2016, Queen Creek’s ambulance services had been provided by American Medical Response. After the handover on Friday, Queen Creek will cease to use AMR’s services.
The impetus for the town creating its own ambulance service came about after fire officials recorded problems with AMR’s performance.
“We feel we began to see some operational deficiencies from the private provider that we identified and made very clear what those were, and we did not see those going away. They were going to remain,” Gray said. “So, we wanted to make sure that we put in place and expanded a program that would continue a high level of service to the citizens of Queen Creek.”
During the April 6, 2022, council meeting, QCFMD Deputy Fire Chief Lee Barnes told council members about two incidents with AMR that were of particular concern.
“In August of (2021), we had a personnel issue in which an AMR paramedic didn’t want to run a call,” Barnes said. “He placed his unit out of service, abandoned his shift and walked out of the station. The closest unit available to respond came from Sossaman and Main and had a 38-minute response time to that particular call.”
Barnes added that on the evening of March 17, 2022, AMR had no ambulances in service in the town, so there was no coverage for one hour, during which time there was a motor vehicle accident and a cardiac arrest call.
“These were both serviced by ambulances from Mesa and Gilbert,” Barnes said.
The 24 paramedics and emergency medical technicians for the new Emergency Transport Service were recently introduced to the town council.
Town of Queen Creek
Along with the performance concerns, Gray said moving ambulance services in-house is part of a trend among the nation’s fire departments.
“There are an increasing number of other cities and towns municipalizing their own services for patient transportation,” Gray said.
Queen Creek and Gilbert both started contracting ambulance services with AMR in 2016. Gilbert dropped AMR in 2021, after the town started its own service, fire officials told council members in April 2022.
The cost of launching the new program is $2.9 million and includes the purchase of five ambulances and the hiring of 12 paramedics, 12 emergency care technicians, one compliance officer and one billing technician. Other annual operating expenses, such as patient-related supplies and fuel, are expected to cost $200,000.
“(Residents) can look forward to a continued, very high quality of fire and medical services from us,” Gray said. “The introduction of the ETS program just an expansion of what we’re doing each and every day.”
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Janet Perez News Editor | Queen Creek &
San Tan Valley
Meet Janet Janet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.
Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.
Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science.
Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.
Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.
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