One Ambulance For Entire County: Colusa County Leaders Worry About Emergency Response Times
COLUSA (CBS13) — Colusa County leaders say they're worried after the county ambulance service was cut from two to just one.
Supervisor Kent Boes says it's not enough to service calls.
"One ambulance really doesn't cut it," Boes said. "We see a lot of wrecks on I-5 and Highway 20. There's a lot of traffic coming through here."
Colusa County is a large geographic service area of 1,200 square miles, with a relatively small population of 21,000 people.
READ: Stockton Police Say Man Lit DVD Player On Fire, Threw It Out Third-Story Window
Enloe Medical Center in Chico, which operates the ambulances, says that's the problem. It costs about $1,360 per ambulance call but they're only reimbursed $670 from Medicare and Medi-Cal with makeup 75% of their calls.
So, Enloe Medical Center turned to the county to bridge the gap. The county was paying around a quarter-million dollars a year, then this fall Enloe asked for double that.
"Increasing half a million to go from one to two ambulances in a year's time didn't sit well with me," Boes said.
ALSO: 1 Arrested In Mexico, 1 Wanted In Connection With 2011 Homicide In Modesto
The goal is a 10-minute response time, which they're hitting in Colusa, but in Williams, the majority of the time it's more than 16 minutes.
For Troy Thompson, it's a dangerous game with dangerous consequences. His 70-year-old mother suffers from an irregular heartbeat. She recently called 911, but he said there was a "serious lag in response time."
"They couldn't even tell me where they were going to transport me to," Emma Thompson said.
Her son said it was an hour before the first responders could get to her and check her out. "That's Colusa to Williams, which is roughly 15-20 minutes," Troy said.
"There needs to be something done, whether it's the research to figure out if two is enough, is two is adequate for the county," Thompson said.
One way to save money would be to have a basic life support ambulance and an advance life support ambulance. That's something consultants will be looking at in the next few weeks. The county also has hired a consulting group to take a closer look at Enloe's budget and try to come up with a way to move forward.