Greene County's largest provider of EMS services will no longer take 911 calls
GREENE COUNTY (KDKA) — The largest provider of emergency medical response in Greene County says it will no longer take 911 calls.
It's a crisis across the state, especially in rural areas like Greene County — where it can take more than a half-hour to respond to some emergencies.
"It could be a 40-minute response time," Richard Policz of Greene County Emergency Services said.
So, it came as a blow two weeks ago when Southwest EMS, the largest EMS operation in Greene County, informed the county it would no longer respond to emergencies due to financial constraints.
"Southwest has made a decision to cease 911 calls as of 11 o'clock tomorrow evening," Policz said.
Insurance companies cover 60 percent of emergency responses, and state and local governments are not closing the gap. As a result, more and more EMS operations are going out of business or responding only to non-emergency situations.
"The system is broken," Policz said. "EMS statewide, the system is broken."
In the past two weeks, Fayette EMS and Washington Ambulance and Chair have agreed to cover Greene County. But that will stretch existing resources. Across the state, response times are increasing as fewer and fewer ambulance services are called on to cover greater and greater territory.
"We're going to be OK, but it's not going to be great. It needs to be fixed," Greene County Commissioner Blair Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman said it's time to fund and fix the system to provide adequate response times in medical emergencies.
"I want someone there that can be there to the fastest," Zimmerman said.
Unless and until the system is fixed, EMS operations will be under greater strain, and response times will increase, putting the public at risk in life-threatening situations.