No Good News for Dunwoody from the EMS Council meeting of August 14th.
The sub-committee looking at the DeKalb zone did NOT recommend opening the zone to other providers (other than DeKalb Fire, which holds the entire zone certificate). The sub-committee cited a modest amount of improvement in response times from the proposal of DeKalb/AMR into three DeKalb response areas. That said, the sub-committee also said more substantial improvement is still needed, despite their recommendation to NOT open the zone to other providers.
Then the full EMS Council voted 18-1 to approve the sub-committee's recommendation to NOT open the DeKalb zone or split it. Another 10 members voted to abstain (such as DeKalb Fire and other ambulance providers - all who have a vested interest in the motion outcome).
Then the Region 3 EMS Council voted to disband the DeKalb zone sub-committee altogether. This means Dunwoody, Brookhaven, etc. are back to the current status quo and not without an appointed sub-committee of the Region 3 EMS Council to investigate or monitor further.
Bottom line is our current EMS response times issue will continue. In Dunwoody, we will see more of the same and we may need to continue paying a $600K per year supplement for an extra ambulance to stay close to Dunwoody, otherwise the pool of ambulances may be pulled to travel deep into DeKalb County making a return trip North problematic during rush hour.
Chief Fullum of DeKalb Fire then updated the full Region 3 EMS Council that AMR is now operating under an 18-month extension contract that only runs from January 2025 to June 2026. A DeKalb Fire RFP for the DeKalb ambulance services contract is in the review stage.
Guess we need to wait to see what will be proposed next?
Video from Brookhaven last year asking for EMS changes needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment