In August of 2004, North East expanded its operations by opening a base in Rockport, Maine. This new base is located on Route 1 in Rockport and is just 5 minutes from Penobscot Bay Medical Center. The base is managed by Craig Fuller who was the former owner of Seacoast Ambulance and who has many years of EMS experience in the Midcoast Region of Maine. This new operation is fully licensed to provide both emergency and transport services and operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Initially, its primary focus had been to provide transport services at both the BLS and ALS levels for patients who needed to be moved from PenBay Medical Center or Waldo County Hospital to tertiary care facilities in Bangor or Scarborough, to psychiatric hospitals or long term care facilities. More recently, it has started handling emergency responses at local nursing homes in the Rockport area for those patients who need to be transported to PenBay. We look forward to developing further business in this beautiful region of the State. Many thanks to the many people at North East who have helped launch this new program, particularly Steve Bennett and the staff of our Brunswick base who provide back up support for the Rockport base.

New Hampshire Licensing

In response to requests from New Hampshire hospitals to assist them in transporting acutely ill patients, North East applied to become licensed as an ambulance service in the State of New Hampshire. Effective September, 2004, we received a license that allows us to operate anywhere in the State of New Hampshire as a medical transport service. Following inspection by New Hampshire licensing agent, Tammy Fortier, 7 of our ambulances were approved for use in New Hampshire and we now have 15 of our staff members licensed as EMS providers in New Hampshire. In order to be licensed in NH, personnel must be certified as providers by the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians. We are working to expand the number of North East personnel who are National Registry certified so that they can then be eligible for licensure in NH.

To date, most of our New Hampshire business has come from hospitals in North Conway and the lakes region but we look forward to expanding our NH business into other areas. We thank New Hampshire State EMS Director, Sue Prentiss, and Licensing agent, Tammy Fortier, for their assistance in the licensing process.