Vashon’s fire board last Wednesday night unanimously voted to approve a plan to combine Vashon’s paramedics with those of the South King County Medic One system.

The plan, originally presented to the board of commissioners roughly three weeks ago, has been in the works for more than two years. It outlines a model of emergency care that will make Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s (VIFR) seven paramedics employees of South King County Medic One, which serves mainland areas such as Burien, Kent and Renton. Medics who previously worked only on Vashon and South King County medics will now rotate through all of South King County, including Vashon.

“We (will) have more resources and opportunities to practice skills in the city,” VIFR Board Chair Candy McCullough said. “If there’s a Vashon incident, we (will) have a pool (of medics) to pull from, and if we need to do three or four off-island transports at once, we can fill that need.”

Currently, Vashon’s medics are VIFR employees and are separate from the greater South King County system. On any given shift, there are two paramedics — trained in advanced life support — and two EMTs — trained in basic life support — working. The isolated nature of the island and unavoidable delays due to ferries makes calling for backup in a timely manner or having enough medics to staff beyond two off-island transports deep, is nearly impossible. When a patient must be transported off the island, one EMT and one medic go off in the aid car, which goes against Medic One policy, which states two medics must work together, including on transports. That fact, along with concerns that Vashon’s medics were not seeing a wide enough variety of calls to keep up their skills, led to the creation of this plan.

Previous versions of the plan, including one presented to former VIFR Chief Hank Lipe in April, attempted to abide by the two-paramedic transport recommendation, but left the island with too large of a gap in care.

VIFR commissioner and volunteer Brigitte Schran Brown admitted that when she was first elected to the commission last year, she was opposed to the plan because “there were holes.”

However, after Lipe sent the plan back in the spring, the county accepted the model of splitting as acceptable. The current plan keeps that practice in place.

Brown has since changed her mind, she said, explaining that, under the new plan, if all Vashon’s medics are already involved and another call comes in, Vashon’s medics can call ahead before they leave the island and have backup from the mainland on the way.

“We have backup for the first time ever,” she said.

The additional resources will also help cash-strapped VIFR cut down on its exorbitant overtime costs. At the Wednesday meeting, VIFR paramedic Andy Johnson said that he has worked as many as seven 24-hour shifts in a row — two 24-hour shifts is the norm.

“We’ve got a system that requires eight paramedics, and we have eight,” he said. “If one medic is out, it falls on the other seven to pull the slack. Multiple times we’ve been down two medics and there’s no way to backfill. It’s do-able, but not healthy.”

Keith Keller, chief of South King County Medic One, attended last Wednesday’s meeting and said that Lipe had repeatedly come to the county asking for help paying $250,000 in overtime costs.

However, even with the new plan, VIFR is in a funding crisis and has not raised its levy in 25 years.

“We are going to be facing financial issues,” Brown said in response to a question from Vashon Park District commissioner Doug Ostrum about funding and how a higher fire district levy will take funding from the parks. “We don’t know what we’re doing yet. This medic issue has been on the forefront, on the front burner. Then we will focus on the budget and meeting call volume.”

The transition will also present an issue with firefighters, as Vashon’s paramedics are also firefighters. However, during each shift, only one of the two paramedics on duty is allowed to respond to fires. The other must be available for medical emergencies.

“We’re only losing one firefighter position per shift,” McCullough said. “We need to figure that funding out. We’re hoping that by the time the transition happens we have this figured out.”

Among other questions asked at the meeting attended by roughly 20 islanders were questions about the training of off-island medics, especially when it comes to navigating the island and dealing with the “quirkiness” of islanders.

Michelle Plorde, director of the county’s emergency medical services and the plan’s creator, and McCullough both said that they plan to have the South King County medics partnered with a Vashon medic for at least one year. Meanwhile, Vashon medics on the mainland will be partnered with a mainland medic.

The board’s goal is to have the transition completed by Jan. 1, but Plorde said that goal is “optimistic” as King County’s and Vashon’s unions still need to meet to work out logistics. The final, detailed plan then needs to be submitted to the King County Council for approval.