County approves ambulance contract

June 23, 2009 08:05 pm

— By TESA CULLI
tesa.culli@register-news.com
MT. VERNON — The Jefferson County Board approved a new three year contract with Litton Ambulance to provide emergency service in Jefferson County.
County board member Robert White questioned why the board was receiving the contract on Monday without a check to review and why the second ambulance service in the county — LifeStar Ambulance — was not given the opportunity to bid on providing service.
“We’ve only received one complaint in three years,” Board Chairman Ted Buck said. “And that one, we received the medical records from [St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital] which were released to us, and the problem wasn’t with the ambulance service.”
Buck went on to say that three years ago, the board determined there should only be one ambulance service provider for emergency service in the county, which White said wasn’t his question.
“I just want to know if we looked at or solicited contract proposals from the other service,” White said. Buck said the county did not seek other proposals because there have been no problems with the current provider.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” added board member James Malone.
“If there’s no problems with Littons, we need to keep it like it is,” board member Clarence Mays said.
Buck has said previously that sharing the 911 emergency calls with more than one ambulance provider would cause hardship for the businesses involved, and has cited ambulance service problems in Franklin County as an example of the problems that could arise.
According to the ambulance service ordinance which was passed in June 2006, the county board “shall limit the number of private enterprise emergency ambulance services providing service [to] a number to be determined after the receipt and evaluation of emergency ambulance service proposals from interested and licensed enterprise providers.”
The three year contract has no changes from the previous contract, Buck said.