BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — A downtown Buffalo business owner told 7 News she had a woman collapse inside her business.
She called 911 and said it took AMR two hours to respond to her call. She is just one of the many people who have reached out to Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski about the concerns they have with AMR response times.
"I've heard that not only have they been staggered, or they have basically not been responded to or that an ambulance didn't show up at all, and that's really alarming," Nowakowski said.
7 News' I-Team reported last week that Nowakowski sent a letter to AMR demanding information about response times, staffing shortages and vehicles that may be contributing to delays.
"These delays are not only alarming but also pose severe risks to the health and well-being of our residents," Nowakowski said.
"And we have to scrutinize this more after hearing a series of complaints for quite some time," Nowakowski said.
He said the third-party ambulance service contracted with the city has been operating without a contract since March 2021.
"That's also glaring that we still have an open contract that hasn't been settled with AMR," he added.
Lawmakers addressed these concerns during Tuesday's Common Council meeting.
"Unless there's some sort of mass emergency there's no excuse for them to not get there you know within a quick amount of time," North District Council member Joseph Golombek said.
"One thing we talked about this morning is I have staff working on that'll be filed for our next meeting is a resolution asking the administration to look into creating our own ambulance service," Council President Chris Scanlon said to Nowakowski.
AMR provided the following statement to 7 News:
American Medical Response (AMR) is currently assessing the claims made in Councilman Nowakowski's letter released July 18. In the spirit of transparency, we would like to provide an update on the operational status of AMR Western New York.
While the exclusive operating agreement has ended between the City of Buffalo and AMR Western New York, we continue to provide vital emergency medical services to the city we call home. We do respect the request for proposal (RFP) process, which is why we submitted a response to the city’s RFP shortly after it was distributed in August 2021. Although the process was halted, AMR Western New York continues to serve our community in times of need.
AMR Western New York prioritizes responding to high-acuity calls, such as traumatic injuries and cardiac arrests, and believes our response times to these calls fall within industry standards.
Due to prioritizing the most severe cases, lower acuity calls may result in longer response times. AMR Western New York remains committed to the City of Buffalo and continues to make extensive investments in our staff and infrastructure such as development and recruiting programs to respond to a personnel shortage affecting EMS systems nationally.
These include our award-winning Earn While You Learn program and funding paramedic education and training through Erie Community College (ECC). In fact, 17 new Paramedics are set to graduate from the ECC program in August, which will strengthen our ability to continue to meet the emergency medical needs of Buffalo.
AMR Western New York invests in Buffalo because it is our community. Our first responders not only work here, but they live here, and they continually make sacrifices to serve the people they love.
AMR Western New York remains dedicated to collaborating with city leadership, allied agencies and healthcare facilities to continue to improve EMS services to the City of Buffalo. We look forward to continuing this conversation and speaking with the Buffalo Common Council Finance Committee in September.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, the benchmark time for an emergency crew to respond to a critical call is nine minutes or less.
AMR's average response time has not been made public.
"We understand that calls go through a priority but show us through data that these calls are adequately being responded to because that's not the feeling here on the street," Nowakowski said.
He said he requested that AMR testify at a finance committee meeting on September 10.
