Under a surprising new contract, Corrales will get improved, guaranteed ambulance response in medical emergencies for way less money.

Albuquerque Ambulance Services offered a new contract to Village officials last month that would cut approximately $54,000 from what has been charged in the past.

As explained by Albuquerque Ambulance officials at the June 19 council meeting, the reduced charge for a guaranteed response time of 15 minutes or less on 90 percent of the calls is the result of savings by closing an ambulance substation.

In the future, the ambulance serving Corrales would be located at a site in a public area on the village’s periphery, such as the Barnes & Noble bookstore parking lot, it was suggested.

Corrales Fire Chief Anthony Martinez recommended approval of the new agreement, noting the cost for ambulance service would drop from $60,400 to $6,000.

Naturally Village officials were skeptical; would the lesser cost mean villagers will be more at-risk during a medical emergency? they wanted to know.

The non-profit firm’s answer was that service would be improved and guaranteed. Until now, the Village has received no guaranteed response time, only that Albuquerque Ambulance would make its “best effort” to respond to calls here.

The new agreement puts Corrales in the same service level as provided to other communities in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. That includes a guarantee that response time will be 15  minutes or less on 90 percent of calls for life-threatening incidents and 30 minutes or less 90 percent of the time for non-life threatening incidents.

Chief Martinez began by saying, “I’m very proud to say we’ve had a wonderful, excellent relationship with Albuquerque Ambulance over the years.  We’re here before you tonight with some dramatic changes to this contract.

“You have before you tonight a contract that has a figure of $6,000 a year versus the former $60,749 —a dramatic decrease saving us roughly $54,000 this year.”

Flanked by Corraleño Phil Froman, long-time emergency medical director for the Corrales Fire Department (also medical director of Albuquerque Ambulance) and the firm’s executive director, Chief Martinez strongly urged approval of the contract.

Councillors directed the mayor to execute the contract as presented.

Councillor Jim Fahey, a retired physician, pressed for what the differences are between the old contract terms and the new. The easy reply: under the old contract, Village officials received no commitment as to response time.

“One of the reasons we’re able to reduce the cost of this service is that we are no longer going to occupy a substation,” the firm’s director explained. 

Councillor John Alsobrook sized up the proposal this way. “We’re never going to get anything better for something we’re paying less for.”

In the past, if the ambulance “assigned” to Corrales was called away to another emergency elsewhere in Bernalillo County, there was no assured back-up replacement. That will change now so that any of the 40 or more ambulances in the metro area will respond to calls from Corrales. “We think this is a better response plan for the community than what we had before,” Froman said

He further explained under the new plan, “the ambulance serving Corrales will be stationed along Alameda Boulevard. There are some wonderful places to park there, like Barnes & Noble. So we’ll be keeping that unit right along the Corrales-Albuquerque border.”

Another difference, Froman said, was that the driver and medical personnel will be in the ambulance ready to go, rather than inside the substation building.

Albuquerque Ambulance typically responds to more than 80,000 calls a year.

During the past two Village budget cycles, the cost of ambulance service had been a significant issue. With restricted revenues for Village government,  councillors debated whether they could find $50,000 or more for ambulance service.