In a closed press conference on Thursday, Auerbach described the scope of the problem. Over 30 communities, 10 private ambulance services and 14 municipalities are affected, he said. In addition to a widespread systemic failure, two instructors who allegedly accepted bribes, Mark Cullerton and Leo Nault, had their training certifications fully revoked by the Commonwealth and are banned from teaching any emergency medical courses.

Emergency technicians have to be re certified over the course of their careers. Several instructors accepted bribes in exchange for certification credit hours. They filled class rosters with names of people and held fictitious classes that did not have any attendance.

It is illegal to falsify emergency training records in Massachusetts. In addition to suspensions and revocations, the individual companies and municipalities will take disciplinary action at their own discretion. The public health commissioner has referred these cases to the State Attorney General's Office and legal action is expected.

When asked about the possible terminations, Dennis Cataldo, the Vice-President of Cataldo Ambulance Services, said, "the people whose certificates were suspended for 90 days by the state will definitely be fired" and that "Cataldo Ambulances takes these matters very seriously." He estimated that nearly three percent of a staff of 600 may be implicated. Though he had an approximate number, Cataldo does not know of any names of fraudulent employees at this time.

Despite the impending terminations, Cataldo said the ambulance service is ready to respond to the needs of the Somerville community and that all EMTs presently working are certified. The DPH has pledged to provide help and coordination to ambulance services around the Commonwealth to address employee shortages that are a result of the suspensions.

The suspensions will not affect the response times and quality of service provided by Cataldo to the City of Somerville.

These systemic suspension cases highlight failures both at the state and local level in EMT certification regulations. Commissioner Auerbach said that his office was taking steps to "work with ambulance services to strengthen monitoring of training throughout the state and will be conducting random, unannounced inspection of these courses."