New Bellingham fee intended to deter care center calls for non-emergency help
Licensed care facilities could be facing a $1,000 fee for calling 911 and asking firefighters to help lift or move a resident who is not sick or injured, under a measure that the Bellingham City Council approved unanimously Monday.
Fire Chief Bill Hewett said the ordinance is aimed at persuading nursing homes and similar facilities to hire and train enough workers to handle non-emergency situations without having to call 911 and take a fire crew out of service.
“They should be able to identify what is a true medical emergency versus lifting and moving. We’re still here when you have a medical emergency. We’re just not here to move a person from a chair to a bed because you don’t have the staffing,” Hewett told the council’s Public Health, Safety, Justice, and Equity Committee on Monday. “The client is paying them to provide those needs.”
The new fee doesn’t apply to private homes.
Other Washington cities, including Tacoma and Everett, have enacted similar fees, fire Capt. Steve Larsen, who heads the community paramedic program, told the council. The new law will keep the three firefighters who staff an engine and ambulance available for emergencies, and it aims to hold care facilities responsible for providing services that their residents expect.
“The ones that we are identifying here are individuals who have had quote-unquote non-emergent falls. These are individuals who have slipped from bed, melted down to the ground. They didn’t have a medical component to this. There was no trauma involved. We’re talking about individuals who need assistance moving from a recliner to a bed, and yet the Fire Department gets called. We want to discourage (them) from using public funds to support the private sector. We also want to make sure that this vulnerable population is not on the ground any longer than they need to be when there’s staff on site 24/7 for these people,” Larsen told the council.
About 230 alarms, or almost half of all 911 calls to care facilities in 2024, did not result in a patient being taken to the hospital, he said. There are 14 assisted-living facilities in Bellingham, five skilled nursing facilities and nine adult family homes.
“This has been a chronic issue over decades,” Larsen said.
