BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The City of Buffalo has been violating its own rules by not having an oversight body, meeting regularly, to be the watchdog of ambulance services.
Buffalo Fire Commissioner William Renaldo acknowledged as much, with the 7 News I-Team.
It's called the Emergency Medical Services Board and it's mandated to meet on the third Thursday of each month. Thing is, it's been years since they met. Ordinarily, it's the Buffalo fire commissioner who is the chairperson of this board.
The 7 News I-Team asked Buffalo Fire Commissioner William Renaldo about the violation of the city's charter.
Ed Drantch: Why hasn't that board met?
Commissioner William Renaldo: I can't really answer that question. I think the last time that board met was 2015. Myself and my team came on board in 2018.
Renaldo went on to say the Emergency Medical Services Board is now defunct. Again, the city is required to have this board in place.
Drantch: So the board is defunct, though city charter mandates there be a board in place. How can the two be?
Renaldo: Well, members of the board are no longer available to us. I may have used the word defunct in possibly the wrong manner, but for all practical purposes it is defunct.
Renaldo says they're in the process of establishing a new board to review new data and provide oversight of AMR, that third party ambulance service that's been operating in the city without a contract since 2020.
Now, the 7 News I-Team has learned contract talks are moving forward, between the City of Buffalo and AMR.
Watch: City of Buffalo has contract proposal in front of AMR
Renaldo says, AMR is willing to implement a nurse navigation program regardless of contract status. That program would send expert nurses to low-priority calls. That would free up ambulance crews for more high-priority calls.
Renaldo tells the 7 News I-Team, AMR now has a contract proposal in front of them and believes we could have some movement on it "fairly soon."
Drantch: So when do you expect to have that contract back in your hands to sign it?
Renaldo: I don't really have a firm timeline. I would think in the next month or so that we'd have some closure on it.
Drantch: Are we acting with any urgency here, knowing they've been operating without a contract for several years?
Renaldo: There's not really any need for urgency because they've been operating as if they've been under contract.
No urgency, Renaldo says, because AMR was under "close supervision" of the department's medical director and himself, addressing issues as they come up. Yet because the city didn't have a contract with AMR, the possibility exists the city could have lost out on more than $2 million in fees it should have been collecting over the past four years.
No word if the city will recoup that cash.
