(Photo by Brett Dunlap) Jake Carr, formerly of St. Joseph’s Ambulance Service and now employed by Camden Clark Ambulance, and Shawn Marshall, manager of EMS Services at WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center, at the Southgate Ambulance station. St. Joseph’s Ambulance closed at the end of March with a number of employees going to work at Camden Clark Ambulance Service. Officials said the transition has gone smoothly without any loss of coverage.

PARKERSBURG — As Camden Clark Ambulance Service has taken over the majority of emergency medical calls in the area, officials feel the transition has gone smoothly without too many problems.

Earlier this year, St. Joseph’s Ambulance Service announced it was ceasing operations at the end of March. Through a variety of efforts, the Camden Clark Ambulance Service was able to increase its size by around 40 people, hiring many of the people who previously had worked for St. Joseph’s Ambulance Service.

Shawn Marshall, manager of EMS Services at WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center, said the people from both groups have been integrating very well over the past few months.

“There are always growing pains and it is an adjustment for everybody,” he said, adding there were some adjustments that had to be made on both sides.

“However, I feel that the merger between both services went is as good as it could have gone without any lapse in coverage to our community,” Marshall added.

When announcing its closure, St. Joseph’s Ambulance Service officials cited Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements not keeping pace with the company’s costs for providing service as the driving force in the decision. Also, costs were rising for personnel, liability coverage, fuel and mandatory medications and equipment.

Uncollected billing had been growing for several years, with contracted transports exceeding $500,000 a year. The final decision to close St. Joseph’s Ambulance was made after several months of consideration and discussions.

County officials have cited ambulance coverage is more encompassing for the entire community with ambulances stationed at the Wood County 911 Center to better cover Interstate 77 and U.S. 50 as well at a station at the Southgate location to better cover the southside. Ambulances are also located in Vienna and Williamstown.

“I do feel we have a better ability to cover the county,” Marshall said. “The two services used to work good together, but at the same time they had certain areas of the county they covered and we had certain areas of the county we covered.

“There were things we wanted to do but it would infringe on their area. Now that one service is over the entire county we can pretty well move resources to wherever we would need them, depending on call volumes and need.”

Jake Carr was with St. Joseph’s Ambulance for 21 years and was serving as the operations director for St. Joseph’s Ambulance from 2017 to when it closed. At first, he was helping the St. Joe personnel find employment.

“Once I started looking at options I wanted to continue to work in Wood County,” he said. “I have worked in Wood County for 21 years and wanted to continue to serve this community.”

He now works as a field paramedic and “works on the ambulance daily.”

“There were some small adjustments with policy and procedure which have been a little different,” Carr said. “For the most part, we were all, both companies, were doing the same job for the community and there hasn’t been a great deal of change.

“As far as the treating of patients, it has been the same. It really has been a smooth transition.”

Camden Clark Ambulance Service grew by a third with the majority of people coming from St. Joseph’s Ambulance.

“A great deal of us chose to work here,” Carr said. “The supervision and management have been very accepting and very good to work with.”

The crews have worked around and with each other for years in the field and for different services.

“Everyone has been really accepting and the teamwork has been really high,” Carr said. “Coverage is very coordinated and has been going well.”

Carr started out as a field provider in 2004 with St. Joseph’s and moved into a supervision role in 2006 and he spent the last eight years as the Operations Director.

“To go back and provide patient care first-hand has been fine as I enjoy that part of the job so it has been great,” he said. “I think we’re providing quality care to the community with no lapses in care coverage.”

With patient care, all the emergency personnel who worked for Camden Clark and St. Joseph’s had certain state standards they had to meet.

“Prior to St. Joseph’s closure, we all worked well together,” Carr said. “We were on scenes together.

“We may call for backup and a Camden Clark Ambulance would come or Camden Clark Ambulance would call for backup and get a St. Joseph’s Ambulance. We all worked hand and hand prior. There really hasn’t been a great deal of change we all have had to adjust to.”

Marshall feels that morale among all of their people is pretty good. He felt there were benefits Camden Clark was able to offer some of the St. Joseph’s Ambulance people they weren’t able to have before due to Camden Clark’s size and affiliation with WVU Medicine.

Being a larger company, Camden Clark has been able to offer a more competitive wage in dealing with rising prices due to inflation, Carr said.

Camden Clark Ambulance Service is currently operating with around 119 employees, which include emergency vehicle operators, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), paramedics and others.

“We are operating at a higher level with EMTs as opposed to paramedics,” Marshall said. “We are continuously sending staff for additional education.”

There are a number of EMTs who are currently in training to become paramedics and who are expected to graduate in December. They just completed a Critical Care Transport (CCT) certification course and had 11 people who graduated and half of those were employees at the hospital.

“We are building that availability up in those higher skill providers,” Marshall said. “It is just going to take time.

“We are trying to continually provide the best coverage and best services to the county.”

They will be doing an EMT course in mid-October to continue to build their staffing and expand the available services. Applications are available at the hospital website until Sept. 19 under the EMT training program.