Create Partnerships for a Stronger EMS System

The City of Moscow, Idaho has run its fire department and ambulance service on a mainly volunteer basis for close to one hundred and twenty-five years. During this time, the community has benefited from the incredible gift of volunteers who give away their lives to save others.

Taxpayers have benefited from the relatively low cost of a volunteer department; the cost is also kept low since most of the Moscow Ambulance Company’s revenue comes from billing patients.

However, Moscow Ambulance faces a growing set of problems. The population of our community continues to rise, and with it the demand for EMS volunteers to give more time and energy grows ever more burdensome.

At the same time, Moscow Ambulance has increasingly struggled to recruit new volunteers and retain current members. This is especially true of paramedics. Many have felt mistreated by the administrators of the department. Others have simply left for paying positions in other communities.

All of this has led to the department having response times that are often dangerously slow for some types of medical emergencies. The elderly and parents with infants or small children will feel this risk most acutely.

We have a solution near at hand, but the board of Moscow Ambulance has refused to accept it.

PACT EMS has paramedics and EMTs, response vehicles and medical equipment to provide a quick alternative for those times when Moscow Ambulance is not able to respond in a timely manner.

This resource would be available at no extra cost to residents of Moscow and Latah County.

The chief problem, which this petition seeks to address, is that however badly a victim may want or need help faster or at a higher level than Moscow Ambulance can provide, PACT EMS is barred from responding until they have a mutual aid agreement with Moscow Ambulance.

This is because of an administrative rule, which prohibits any ambulance transport service from providing pre-hospital emergency care without having obtained an agreement with the pre-hospital agency having primary responsibility for responding to 9-1-1 calls within a certain geographic area.

This rule makes sense insofar as it is important for EMS agencies to work together to provide seamless patient care, but this same rule makes it possible for any existing 9-1-1 ambulance service to maintain a monopoly in a given area for as long as they desire, simply by refusing to form agreements with any new companies seeking to provide services in the same geographical area.

Certainly, it would be in the best interest of the community for Moscow Ambulance to generously consider forming a mutual aid agreement with PACT EMS. This partnership would end a long-standing monopoly and create new possibilities for residents in need of emergency medical assistance.