Federal funding cuts limit at-home medical care program across Maine
PORTLAND (WGME) -- Community paramedicine programs in Maine have become a casualty of federal funding cuts from the Health and Human Services Department.
Community paramedicine is preventive, at-home care, helping people who might have a hard time getting to the hospital or the doctor. That help comes from EMS crews, and the goal is to get to people before they need to dial 911.
“There is a bit of poverty around here that we have to navigate, and there's health care gaps that we have to tackle, too,” Waterville Fire Department EMS Deputy Chief Everett Flannery said.
- Also read: Waterville EMS crews say response times are likely to increase after local hospital closes
Waterville's fire department was planning to expand its community paramedicine program from three days a week to five. The services they offer range from wellness checks, to blood draws, to sorting daily pills.
Those expansion plans were quickly scrapped after the department’s $100,000 federal grant was taken away.
“That was a bad day for me,” Flannery said.
The I-Team reported on community paramedicine last year, explaining how a paramedicine program in St. George helps dozens of patients stay out of the emergency room. But without grant funding, the town’s EMS chief says the future of that program could be at risk.
And the list goes on. The over $1 million Health Disparities Grant was set to fund 10 programs across the state.
That includes the Portland Fire Department, which was earmarked to receive $96,000 to train the city’s Mobile Medical Outreach team members to perform community paramedicine. It also funded $103,000 for Memorial Ambulance Corps, a paramedicine program that responded to 1,300 calls on Deer Isle in 2024. The program director, Walter Reed, says he's scrambling to find money to keep the program alive, since that grant was the main source of funding.
The funding was also set to expand the free paramedicine program at MaineHealth that serves both Franklin County and Portland.
“We care for a lot of really underserved populations or marginalized populations,” MaineHealth Community Paramedicine Operations Manager Josh Pobrislo said. “So unhoused, new Mainer populations, and then we do have our share of elderly folks that we help care for, too.”
Pobrislo says there's been a 38 percent reduction in emergency department visits for the population they serve in Portland.
MaineHealth's grant money would have expanded the Franklin County program from one day a week to two and would have stretched the Portland-based program to three days a week. Pobrislo says the money also would have provided at-home equipment for patients in need like scales, pill organizers or blood pressure monitors.
“We're going to continue the same services that we have been offering, and we're going to look for ways to grow it,” Pobrislo said. “The idea of community paramedicine at the state level is so needed.”
A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, which oversees Maine’s EMS program, said the grant was terminated as of March 24.
“These programs do not currently have other funding lines and will likely be forced to stand down, eliminating existing services in these communities,” spokesperson Shannon Moss said in a statement. “We anticipate the sudden end of this grant funding will have a substantial impact on our established Systems of Care and Community Paramedicine programs, and will slow our progress in these important areas moving forward.”
Here’s the full list of agencies impacted by the grant cut:
- United Ambulance - Bridgton
- United Ambulance Service
- Northern Oxford Regional Ambulance Service
- City of Waterville; DBA: Waterville Fire Department
- MaineHealth
- Town of St. George
- Town of Topsham
- Memorial Ambulance Corps
- Town of Stockton Springs Ambulance
- Portland Fire Department
