MI Commissioners Examine Non-Emergency Responses

Jan. 6—Should 911 calls for firefighters and first responders be monitored more closely to avoid sending them to incidents not involving emergencies?

That was a question posed to Monroe County Board of Commissioners Tuesday night by a Monroe Township woman concerned that firefighters are rushing to the scene and county tax dollars are being wasted on non-essential calls. Tricia Nadeau told the eight commissioners present that firefighters and first responders were answering "thousands of non-emergency calls" every year, causing burnout for responders and wasteful spending.

"Why are first responders running calls like this on our tax dollars?", Nadeau asked the board during the public comment period. "I can't speak for all departments in the county. (But) I am certain the majority of the community has no idea their tax dollars are responding to (non-essential matters)."

She cited, as examples, 911 calls from persons concerned about blisters on their body, people who fall and their backs are hurting the next day, someone who needs a catheter or someone who needs a mental health evaluation.

"It's not that I don't care about those calls, it's that they're not getting the right help they need," she said.

She said the 911 calls were more carefully screened during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic to save lives.

"What I'm concerned about is burnout and wasteful spending of tax dollars," she said. "I don't believe we have the money to keep doing that."

She said she comes from a firefighting family and noted her husband is a firefighter. But she stressed that these concerns were her own and not her husband's.

She suggested that dispatchers could be trained to screen calls and be allowed to suggest callers make an appointment with their doctors or arrange for rides to the hospital on their own.

"We have hospitals on standby and yet we're still running (emergency room) calls at high volumes," she said.

Commissioner David Hoffman, who served as a volunteer on a fire department once, agreed with Nadeau that these were issues to address. Hoffman said perhaps 911 calls could be "triaged" by dispatchers to assign degrees of urgency before units are dispatched.

"That's something to look at," Hoffman said. "It takes so much training for these young fellas" who serve as volunteers. "There is also millions of dollars tied up in equipment and trucks. I foresee someday when all calls will be handled by full-time firefighters."

Commissioner Greg Moore Jr. said Lucas County ( Ohio) is dealing with the same call issue.

"There's no reason to respond" to those types of calls, Moore said.

Sheriff Troy Goodnough, chairman of the county 911 Emergency Services Board, attended the meeting and spoke with Nadeau afterward. The board's next meeting is Jan. 25.

"I don't see this as a big hurdle," Goodnough told her. "But you've got to get all of the fire chiefs on board with this."

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