Monongalia County should insist closest available EMS service respond to emergency

As many debates about health care hinge on politics these days as on investments and profit.
Many question how so much of our nation’s health care model is predicated on money.
You’d think we would know better than plunging into the middle of such debates by now.
But we make exceptions, and one reservation we maintain for doing so is in cases of life and death.
In 1982, the Monongalia County Commission signed off on a mutual-aid agreement with EMS services that regulates how ambulances are dispatched. That agreement designated Mon Health EMS as the county’s primary EMS service.
If Mon EMS was unavailable to respond, the call would go to Star City EMS or Jan-Care. In 2017, Mon Health EMS responded to 85 percent of nearly 17,800 EMS calls in our county.
That agreement was most recently renewed in 2014 and is set to expire in June 2019.
In February, WVU Hospitals announced it added another ambulance service to the county — HealthTeam Critical Care Transport — with four satellite stations outside the Morgantown area.
Soon after that, some residents in western Monongalia County requested that nearby HealthTeam ambulances be allowed to respond there first.
Initially, WVUH said it would refuse to sign on to the county’s mutual-aid agreement as another backup to Mon Health EMS. However, it has since changed its position. Now, it says it will sign on to the agreement.
But, it said it would only do so in a letter with one caveat: Declaring this agreement exposes the county and Mon Health EMS to “substantial liability.”
That is, by “institutionalizing a 911 system that guarantees certain residents … will have to wait unreasonably long periods of time for emergency care.”
We are not going to argue against this agreement based on potential liability, but rather simply on improving outcomes in emergencies.
In a rural state, such as ours, that doesn’t have enough EMS coverage in the first place in many outlying areas, the more emergency crews stationed, the better.
In Mon Health EMS’s defense, it already provides staging and roaming ambulances in areas of the county far beyond its central facility. It is also planning to open a two-vehicle garage across I-79 from the University Town Centre in August.
Yet, we cannot help but agree with WVUH’s position that placing more EMS stations across the area can only help reduce response times.
Minutes, even seconds, can matter in emergencies. That’s why the county should insist that the closest available ambulance service respond, no matter who owns it.
As WVUH’s response succinctly sums up this position, “There is no other defensible position.”
There are lives in the balance.