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| Promises Made |
On Facebook, there is a thread of a scary medical situation where there was a delay in medical and ambulance services (luckily the child will be OK) and there are numerous comments as to needed service improvements. The City will be making inquiries to the County for specifics from the 911 data, DeKalb Fire Rescue data and also from AMR, the ambulance service contracted with the County. The initial fire truck should be providing immediate advanced medical attention enough to stabilize the injured and the ambulance then transports you to the hospital. When a loved one is in pain, every minute counts!
Questions were raised in the Facebook thread if the City Council was aware of issues and we keenly are, we even questioned a DeKalb County representative who presented to the City Council just last week, asking him to bring the issue back to the CEO as the citizens of the county are not adequately being served. It is my hope that the DeKalb CEO and Board of Commissioners improves the services county wide on this topic as it is becoming life and death situation. Below is my comment on the Facebook thread as well as the video from the last meeting.
As Mayor Lynn Deutsch stated, EMS (and Sanitation) are County Services that are constantly on the mind of the Dunwoody City Council. If DeKalb is not providing adequate services on Sanitation, we have the power to either start providing our own services (like Chamblee) or contract out to a private contractor but until then we hope that DeKalb Sanitation improves the services to meet expectations. Unlike Sanitation, we can not pull away from DeKalb County for EMS services and are at the mercy of DeKalb County to step up with adequate coverage. Dunwoody could "supplement" coverage with our own via a special service tax district but DeKalb would scale back services even more which would then double tax Dunwoody citizens. This is a possibility moving forward but we expect DeKalb County to modify the upcoming County budget or modify the SPLOST funding to improve this necessary service.
DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond signed an MOU with Mayor Shortal improving the EMS services but there needs to be adequate funding and staffing levels as well as contractual compliance by the sub-contractor (AMR) to make the system work.
https://jkheneghan.com/city/meetings/2022/Jun/EMS_MOU%20with%20signatures.pdf
https://jkheneghan.com/city/meetings/2022/Jun/DeKalb%20County%20Fire%20Info%20to%20EMS%20Council%20111419.pdf
At our last City Council meeting, there was a DeKalb representative there to chat about our Service Delivery Agreement, and if you watch the meeting video at the 1-hour, 11-minute start point you can hear me question EMS services and the lack of DeKalb County funding/staffing to properly serve the community.
Here is the most recent Service Delivery Strategy which identified DeKalb for EMS & Sanitation.
https://jkheneghan.com/city/meetings/2022/Jun/01142019_Service_Delivery_Adding_Stonecrest-2.pdf
Here is the link to the video from June 13, 2022, where I question the DeKalb representative on EMS Funding.
https://youtu.be/rbOcDIT88Lc?t=4276
