PROPHETSTOWN, Ill. — According to the Prophetstown Fire Protection District, its ambulance service is critically close to no longer being able to respond to calls due to a lack of staffing and funding.
When each call comes in, the ambulance team must roll out to respond, but the service is struggling to keep up as the call volume rises and the number of crew members continues to fall.
“Right now, we’re having trouble daily – every day – trying to staff an ambulance,” Ambulance Administrator Julie Pope said.
When an ambulance is fully staffed, there are more than 30 people on the shift roster. As of Thursday, June 2, the ambulance is down to 12, and Pope spends hours each day trying to fill her medical team’s open shifts.
The service typically sees 35 calls a month, but the number of calls is going up. The service saw 44 calls in April and 48 in May, Pope said.
EMT Dawn Sibley Fisk said she’s never seen things this bad in her years of service with the fire protection district.
“There’s just so few of us that are doing so much,” Sibley Fisk said. “It feels like you’re starting to drown … Rural EMS services are in critical care and on life support right now.”
But the labor shortage isn’t the only issue weighing down the ambulance service. It's also struggling to pay its bills. In 2021, the ambulance team billed nearly $800,000 worth of services, but by the end of the year, only $200,000 was actually paid to them.
When Whiteside County received nearly $11 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to relieve some of COVID-19's toll, none of the funds went to the ambulance service.
"We, the EMS, (are) the people who were the very front line for COVID," Sibley Fisk said. "We have not received a dime of that $11 million."
Without proper funding, the service has even more trouble recruiting and filling shifts. It's a dire situation many in Prophetstown don't know exists.
"They don't get just how critical it is and how close they are to calling 911 and not having anybody show up," Sibley Fisk said.
Now, the ambulance team is asking for more volunteers, funds and awareness before it's too late.