A staffing shortage of fire and Emergency Medical Services dispatchers at the Hawaii County Fire Department has prompted its dispatch center to relocate to the Hawaii Police Department’s dispatch center in Hilo.
“Currently, our staffing has been to the point where for safety and communication reasons, we wanted to bring the two dispatch centers to a single location so they can just turn and talk to each other,” Hawaii County Fire Chief Kazuo Todd said.
The temporary consolidation of police, fire and EMS dispatchers that took effect Friday has raised
concerns by the Hawaii Government Employees Association, which represents emergency dispatchers
at the Police and Fire
departments.
In a letter sent Friday to Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth, HGEA Executive Director Randy Perreira said they are concerned about the “potential negative impact this decision will have on public safety, not to mention the undue burden this places on existing dispatchers and uniformed officers.”
According to Perreira’s letter, police dispatchers are being asked to step in and fill the gap even though they are not trained to dispatch for medical emergencies that come to the fire dispatch unit.
Todd said of the seven dispatchers employed at the Fire Department, two are on leave for personal reasons, and a third has given their resignation.
The fire chief said they are working on potentially bringing an emergency medical dispatch class to train police dispatch personnel.
According to Hawaii County Police Chief Ben
Moszkowicz, police dispatchers are not being asked to handle medical calls or dispatch firetrucks or ambulances at this time. “That’s something the Fire Department is still taking care of,” Moszkowicz said.
Moszkowicz described the arrangement with the Fire Department’s dispatch center as a co-location, not a merger. Moszkowicz said they plan to meet with HGEA today to clear up any confusion about the responsibilities of police dispatchers and those of fire and EMS dispatchers.
The Fire Department currently has one dispatcher working per shift.
“If that person needs to stand up and go use the restroom or something happens and they’re there by themselves, that’s not a good situation,” Moszkowicz said.
Allowing the Fire Department’s dispatchers to co-locate in the Police Depart-
ment’s dispatch center provides some level of insurance should something happen, he said.
Todd said, “Right now we’re leaning on the Police Department that has a slightly larger staffing pool and trying to make sure we maintain the level of service that the public deserves.”
Hawaii County spokesperson Cyrus Johnasen said the county recently hired seven additional people for the Fire Department who are undergoing dispatch training. “We understand the staffing shortages and we understand the urgency,” Johnasen said.
The consolidation of the Fire and Police departments’ dispatch centers is an effort “to put all of our emergency response call takers into one location for the time being,” Johnasen added.
Eventually, all dispatchers from the Police and Fire departments are slated to be permanently housed in a new emergency dispatch facility in Hilo. Construction on the $33 million project, which began years ago, is slated to be completed in 2024.
“Normally, we’re in two different buildings in two different facilities. But the goal was always to move us into a singular facility and get better lines of communication between our agencies,” Todd said.
