HADLEY, Mass. - Hadley town leaders say an additional ambulance for the Hadley Fire Department could go a long way in responding to the increase in calls throughout the town.

What You Need To Know

  • Hadley is looking to add an additional ambulance due to the large increase in calls throughout the town

  • Hadley currently has a partnership with a third-party company called Action EMS that handles most of their emergency calls

  • The new ambulance would be run by the Hadley Fire Department and would handle secondary calls

  • The proposal would cost taxpayers $400,000, which the town hopes to use its free cash to help fund including staffing, equipment and supplies

"For many decades, Hadley enjoyed ambulance service being covered by the town of Amherst," said Select Board member Molly Keegan. "A handful of years ago, we broke away from that and we decided to contract with a third party called Action EMS."

Keegan said a shortage of workers in the health care field across the country has also affected EMTs and first responders.

"The shortage is widespread," Keegan said. "So certainly, Action has had some staffing issues that they fully acknowledged, but they're not unique at all. I mean, you talk to any town who's running an ambulance service and they're just having difficulty finding good people."

Hadley is asking its taxpayers to invest some of the town's available cash into an article that would provide funding for a new ambulance in the town.

"We're fortunate that this particular year we have a kind of a record high amount of free cash," Keegan said. "And what we want to do is use that as an opportunity to provide seed money to this program. So we're asking for roughly $400,000 to be appropriated to this warrant article that would provide the money necessary to the staffing and some of the equipment purchases and supplies that are needed to get this up and running."

The ambulance would be run by the Hadley Fire Department and would handle secondary medical calls. Keegan said the town has seen a large increase in medical emergencies, so having another ambulance to respond would go a long way.

"Hadley only has about 5,300 plus residents in town," Keegan said. "But at any point during the day, we have close to 100,000 car trips going up and down Route 9, so our call volume over the years has really grown exponentially. I mean, they're just more traffic accidents, people shopping, you name it."

Hadley will host their next town meeting on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Hopkins Academy, where residents will have a chance to vote on the proposal.