Courtesy of Reading Eagle

Blandon Community Ambulance and Schuylkill Valley EMS have always worked together.

The Blandon ambulance has provided basic life support, while Schuylkill Valley provides advanced life support. Their proximity, separated only by Ontelaunee Lake, has made them natural partners.

“We’ve always had a great relationship with Schuylkill Valley,” said Lynette Schmale, an emergency medical technician with Blandon Ambulance. “We had talked about merging in the past. It was kind of put on the back burner.”

On May 1, the two ambulance companies became one as Northern Berks EMS. The merger means the two companies will be sharing staff and riding together on calls.

Officials from the newly formed ambulance company will be on hand Saturday during the First Responder Festival. The event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Leesport Fire Company, will give community members a chance to learn about the merger, play some games and meet first responders.

The merger has gone smoothly for all parties involved and ensures the best possible service for the community, said Stephen Bobella Jr., executive director of Northern Berks EMS.

“You can never go wrong when you think of the community first,” Bobella said. “Neither organization did this to benefit more from the merger. We did it with the community in mind. We wanted to improve the care that we provide to them.”

The newly merged company serves Leesport, Centerport and Shoemakersville boroughs and Ontelaunee, Maidencreek, Centre, parts of Bern, Perry and Penn townships.

The merger has a lot of benefits, Bobella said. For one, it’s better to have size when it comes to purchasing. The two organizations will need only one insurance plan after the merger.

For Blandon, it will mean faster response times, Schmale said. As an ALS unit, they’ll have a paramedic in the ambulance.

“We won’t have to wait for an ALS to get on the scene,” she said. “This is basically a big plus when it comes to patient care.”

Bobella said the insurance reimbursement for ambulance companies was another factor.

“The future of EMS and the current status of health care, we have a situation where costs to run ambulance services continue to increase,” Bobella said. “The amount of reimbursement is decreasing. We’re looking at ways to keep it an affordable service for our community.”

Bobella said the paramedics and emergency medical technicians are not only there to assist during an emergency. They want to be seen as a community organization.

“We don’t want our community to only see us when they’re having an emergency,” he said. “We want to partner with them and teach different ways they can mitigate issues in their own homes.”