Robby Rice, a Waterville firefighter and paramedic, changes footwear as he boards an ambulance Monday in Waterville. Rice and a partner left the Waterville Fire Department to go to the Mount Joseph at Waterville nursing home for a patient transport.. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

WATERVILLE — While no one knows the exact impact the closing of Waterville’s only inpatient hospital will mean for the city’s fire and rescue department, one thing is certain — firefighters won’t be able to rely on neighboring departments to handle the extra ambulance calls because they will be in the same boat.

Waterville fire Chief Jason Frost spelled that out Thursday at a special Waterville City Council meeting where councilors reviewed proposed budgets for various departments.

Frost said the fire department doesn’t have mutual aid agreements with other towns for EMS as it does for the fire part of the department.

His department made 902 ambulance transports to Northern Light Inland Hospital last year and that doesn’t include the hundreds of other transports to Inland by Delta Ambulance and other fire department ambulances, including Winslow and Clinton’s — and the people who got there by private vehicles. Frost has been in continuing discussions with MaineGeneral Health officials, local ambulance services and others about how to handle the expected increase of transports to hospitals, including MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta and Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan. Patients also will likely have to be taken to hospitals farther away because of lack of capacity.

“We have delved into this and delved into this and delved into this,” Frost said. “We are not the only service that knows that this is going to affect us immensely.”

Frost said the crisis will affect Waterville more than other area municipalities because his department is the seventh busiest in Maine right now, running the same call volume as South Portland and others. He said he couldn’t stress enough that Waterville firefighters and EMS personnel do their jobs very well with a staff half the size of other departments, and they can do it because there are two hospitals in the city now. His staff is able to respond to ambulance calls 65% of the time in less than five minutes, he said.

“If one hospital didn’t exist anymore, it completely changes our operational model,” he said.

Thayer Center for Health is affiliated with MaineGeneral Health, but it is an outpatient-only facility.

With Inland’s plan to cease caring for patients on May 27 and closing the hospital June 11, fire and EMS workers won’t be able to maintain that quick response and provide the level of service they do now, Frost said. They will struggle to handle call volumes, and when they do get to hospitals, there may be long wait times because emergency departments will be so busy because of the loss of Inland.

“Eighteen thousand people are not going to Thayer,” Frost said. “There’s just no way. So, where are they going?”

Because of the announcement that Inland will close, changes had to be made to the proposed fire-EMS budget. The city has four ambulances, two of which are used full time. Mayor Mike Morris said a proposal is to bring on a third ambulance to full-time status.

Morris, Frost and city councilors discussed a proposal to hire eight more firefighter-paramedics at the top of the pay scale. Frost said getting that many would be difficult and he would hope to get at least four.

“Are we going to get eight firefighter-paramedics?” he said. “No, not unless I steal them from somebody else.”

The city’s finance director, Christine Therrien, said she realized it was a lot of information to take in but it was important that they had the conversation Thursday, and more discussions would be held.

Frost said if councilors have any questions, he is always available by phone or they may visit him at the fire station.

Morris assured councilors there will be more talks, as it is such a fluid situation.

“We are going to bring him (Frost) back on the 17th,” he said. “We’ll probably have more information at that point.”