Please reach us at ruralalaskaems@gmail.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
ALS (Advanced Life Support) refers to a higher level of emergency medical care, including airway management, IV therapy, drug administration, and cardiac monitoring. Many rural areas push for it due to the need for more advanced care, especially given the long transport times to hospitals.
ALS was not forced into the contract with Fort Greely. Fort Greely does not have a BLS service, and so would not be able to respond with an in-kind service, if Delta had only a BLS contract and service. Ft Greely has an ALS service, and would respond in-kind through the Mutual Aid Agreement, with an ALS service to support Delta, as long as Delta also has an ALS service.
Having only one crew is due to funding and staffing constraints, although, we do have a hybrid model in the community-owned non-profit model that has an on-call staff responding with a second ambulance when we have above average call volume.
The ambulance used depends on current resources and there are multiple ways we can approach this.
We can lease ambulances that are already configured, and/or rebuild the ambulances that were purchased. The final goal while be to write grants for new ambulances and equipment, as there is State and Federal funds to supplement equipment for EMS to fill the gaps in the next couple years.
Possibly, but a new mayor cannot do anything on their own, and would need majority vote of city council approval to change any ordinances. A new mayor with different priorities could advocate for reducing funding or restructure EMS, but if the service is well-established and funded through multiple sources, it would be harder to dismantle.