What has been something of thorn in the side of county leaders is again a sore spot.
Providing E-911 ambulance service to the central part of Rush County—an area that includes Rushville and the communities of Glenwood, Homer, Manilla and Arlington—is back at the forefront of local concerns.
During the past four years the county has changed providers on five occasions. The possibility of another change may be looming in the very near future.
Rush County Commissioner Tom Barnes says the county commissioners received notification earlier this week from Life Ambulance’s attorney stating that effective May 15 the company will cease to honor the remaining 31 months of their contract.
“They (Life Ambulance) sent a certified letter stating that as of May 15th they will no longer provided the services they agreed to in the contract they signed last year. I received my letter Monday,” Barnes said Wednesday.
He continued by saying that the aforementioned letter explained that, from a financial point of view, Life Ambulance deemed it necessary to cut services currently provided to the county or increase what the county pays for those services.
“Right now, we (Rush County) are not 100 percent sure where we are going. We have some ideas and some things we need to do. We have a lot more investigative work to do and need to check our options. We want to get it right this time. We do not want to keep reviewing this every three to six months and re-hashing the issue,” Barnes said.
The commissioner said that in the past few days he and others have held numerous meetings in an effort to find a workable solution to the matter.
“This has been a recurring event. It makes no difference if it is Life Ambulance, FMH, Rush EMS, Medivac or any of them—this just hasn’t been working out,” Barnes said.
The commissioners awarded Life Ambulance a three-year contract in November 2006 based on a series of quotes submitted by the company.
Life Ambulance’s bid of $270,000 for three years won out over FMH Ambulance of Fayette County’s bid of $1,261,000. Despite the disparity in the bids, 2007 found the county paying nearly a 16 percent increase in the cost per ambulance run from their previous contract with FMH.
The contract with Life was slated to begin Jan. 1 of this year, although the company assumed duties a month earlier than anticipated when FMH opted out of the final month of their contract prior to December 2006.
When contacted Wednesday afternoon, Life Ambulance Chief Operations Officer Doug Avery acknowledged that local officials were notified of the company’s intentions and given options. He said that the ambulance run information his company used to base their bid on did not adequately reflect the amount of ambulance service needed by the county.
“I hope the county understands that Life Ambulance would not walk out and leave the county high and dry, even if we have to respond from Shelbyville. They will not be left high and dry,” Avery said.
Barnes said recent meetings have been held between himself and Life Ambulance’s local and regional supervisors and following those meetings the county leader left believing that everything was fine.
“I don’t know what happened between then and now and I really don’t know what they expect out of us. Quite frankly, I’m shocked and surprised by this maneuver on their part,” Barnes said.
Frank Denzler can be contacted at (765) 932-2222 ext. 106 or via e-mail at frank.denzler@cnhimedia.com. To add a comment to this story visit our Web site at www.rushvillerepublican.com.
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