Exeter Hospital is delaying plans to end a paramedic intercept program that many area towns rely on, after the New Hampshire attorney general stepped in.
The hospital’s Advanced Life Support program sends paramedics in a specially equipped “intercept” vehicle to emergencies that call for more advanced care than EMTs can provide. Local fire chiefs say it’s critical for smaller towns that don’t have their own paramedics on staff 24/7.
Earlier this week, Exeter Hospital announced plans to discontinue the program on Sept. 20, sparking an outcry from local emergency officials.
But on Friday, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said the hospital had agreed to postpone the program’s closure until Dec. 20. He said that came after his staff met with hospital officials on Thursday night to “relay our significant public safety and health concerns.”
“As a healthcare charitable trust, Exeter Hospital must operate in a manner that protects the public,” Formella said in the statement. “Exeter Hospital’s announcement that it would be discontinuing the ALS Program within 10 days provided wholly insufficient notice to the communities that rely on it.”
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The program’s end will have little impact in Exeter itself, where the fire department has at least one paramedic on duty at all times, the Exeter Fire Department said this week.
But for smaller towns like East Kingston, “it is truly a life-saving service,” said Fire Chief Ed Warren. “I firmly believe that the potential for people to pass away or to expire because of the lack of this service is real.”
Warren recalled a bad crash in town earlier this year. One person died on impact, and three others were trapped in the vehicle. Paramedics from the Exeter intercept team and another team out of Amesbury, Mass., were able to start stabilizing and treating those patients on site, Warren said.
“I firmly believe that it would have been four fatalities if this ALS intercept program was not available to us,” he said.
East Kingston has some paramedics on staff, but they’re not available around the clock. And they don’t have the same advanced training or equipment as the hospital’s paramedic team, Warren said.
“It's like the emergency room is showing up,” he said of the intercept team.
Hampton Falls Fire Chief Jay Lord was relieved to learn the hospital will not cut off the service next week, as planned. He said that gives the region 90 days to figure out a solution.
“Maybe a private company comes and fills that gap,” he said. “Or maybe it's a partnership between municipalities and private and — who knows? There's many, many options that are out there.”
A spokesperson for Exeter Hospital, Sonya Vartabedian, attributed the paramedic program’s closure to “dramatically rising costs, changing patient care trends and a challenging reimbursement environment.”
“After working with the Attorney General’s Office, we have reached an agreement to extend the closure date of the Paramedic Intercept Program,” Vartabedian said in an emailed statement. “This program has served as a resource for many communities, and we will work with the impacted departments, state and local officials during the transition period.”
Exeter Hospital was acquired by Massachusetts-based health system Beth Israel Lahey last year. Formella’s office approved the deal after the health system agreed to certain conditions.
A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, Mike Garrity, said the state is reviewing the sale documents “to determine whether the discontinuance of the ALS Program implicates any of those obligations.”
