Ross County — A plan for the county’s EMS services is one step nearer, after the acceptance of a study of the situation Wednesday.
After frustration with widely varying response efforts by various EMS services in the county – especially after it took almost an hour for a response to a fatal heart attack on Christmas Day 2022 – a steering committee was formed to look into options to improve it. One possibility was a county-wide EMS service, but that was not the only choice.
Cambridge Consulting Group took data submitted by cooperating township and municipal EMS services, and gave a summary of their final results to the Ross County EMS steering committee March 13th, 2024.
Cambridge Consulting spoke through their online feed to the group of township trustees, county commissioners, EMS and firefighters, and Sheriff George Lavender. They said Ross County is not unique in the wide variability and response problems of EMS. One feature is that “mutual aid is failing.”
After the committee voted to accept the study, in the resulting discussion Sheriff George Lavender expressed the frustration that led him to help convene the group: “People shouldn’t be dying because we can’t get the squad to them.” He said his deputies are sometimes the only ones responding to EMS calls – like Christmas Day 2022 – and then are getting yelled at when they are just trying to help.
The group is meeting next Wednesday morning, March 20th, in the county commissioner’s meeting room to take the next step, creating an implementation task force.
Hear a summary of the meeting by Jamie Barker, Jefferson Township Trustee and Vice President of the Ross County Township Association, in the below interview video. Also below are a few snapshots of the report, in lieu of the upcoming full release of it to the public.
The study cost $84,000, of which the Ross County Commissioners paid half. Learn more in three of my previous stories: the January 2nd, 2024 meeting, the June 21st, 2023 meeting, and the Ross County Township Trustees meeting on May 5th, 2023.
