# When Care Facilities Call 911 for Routine Lifts: A Policy Response On a quiet Sunday afternoon in late April, the Bellingham City Council's Public Health, Safety, Justice, and Equity Committee gathered to address a problem that has been simmering in fire stations across the city for years. In conference room after conference room, at kitchen tables where firefighters grab quick meals between calls, the same frustration surfaces: crews being dispatched to licensed care facilities not for medical emergencies, but to help move residents from chairs to beds or lift someone who has simply slipped to the floor without injury. The committee, chaired by Dan Hamill and including members Lisa Huffman and Jace Williams, met to consider an ordinance that would fundamentally change how the Bellingham Fire Department responds to what officials term "non-emergent lift assists" at care facilities. The proposal would authorize the fire department to fine these facilities $1,000 per incident when they call 911 for routine lifting tasks that their staff should be trained and equipped to handle. ## The Problem: 230 Calls That Shouldn't Happen Fire Chief Bill Huitt and Captain Steve Larson arrived at the committee meeting armed with statistics that tell a clear story of resource misuse. The fire department responds to an average of 230 lift assist calls per year at licensed care facilities, each taking approximately 30-43 minutes of crew time. In 2024 alone, nearly 45% of these calls resulted in no transport to a hospital — a strong indicator that no medical emergency existed. "We went on over 24,000 calls with 231 of those being lift assist," Larson explained to the committee. "It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're spending 30 minutes for someone that didn't need to call 911 because someone else is paid to do this job but yet the fire department is coming to do it for them." The scenarios Larson described paint a picture of a system being gamed by facilities looking for the easiest solution rather than the …