Skip to main content

Plan to remake ambulance system in Anderson County would change how EMS calls are answered

Anderson County is set to vote on EMS changes that could remake the county's decades-old system of rescue squads and ambulance coverage.

The county's ambulance system is currently a patchwork of contracts with six rescue squads, typically non-profit organizations that are paid by the county to provide EMS service to various parts of the large county.

The change would mean the county would run all of the EMS services, ending the contracts with the rescue squads and moving their organizations to their current supplemental roles of providing non-emergency medical transportation and to other portions of their operations.

It would likely mean the end for many, if not all of the rescue squads, said Meredith Teske, director of the Belton Rescue Squad.

"It won't be over time, it will be pretty immediate," she said. 

The squads, which currently do both emergency medical responses and non-emergency transportation to doctor's visits, would struggle to stay afloat, Teske said.

The changes could also bring less care to many people who call for an ambulance, Teske said.

The reason for the change is to bring the ambulance service under one umbrella, for accountability, cost savings and to prevent a future collapse in staffing from overworked paramedics, said Don McCown, deputy Anderson County coroner and a leader of the county's effort to make the change.

The county's coroner, Greg Shore, founded MedShore Ambulance, which was absorbed by Priority One in 2017. Priority One would run the county's changed ambulance service. McCown said he has not had a role with MedShore for around eight years.

The change would bring an estimated $3 million in savings and would allow the county to put in a single set of standards for all EMS workers.

McCown said the change would eliminate coverage zones and make paramedics county employees, meaning government insurance and retirement programs. Read a county statement by clicking here.

Council Chairman Tommy Dunn said some of the squads are at risk of financial collapse, which could endanger the county's emergency response and bringing the service under the county's supervision means one group is responsible for the service instead of several.

"Everybody can agree, if they’re honest, the system we have is not working," Dunn said. "The solution is what everyone is talking about."

It would financially hurt local rescue squads like the one in Pelzer, which serves northern parts of the county, said Jimmy Davis, a council member representing the area.

He said there are real problems with the county's EMS system and there needs to be significant changes.

But, Davis said, he has too many concerns with the current bid such as where the ambulances would be located and how they would hire paramedics to staff the county when there is a longtime shortage.

When would the EMS changes happen?

The county asked for bids for proposals early this year and earlier this month a council committee picked the lowest county-wide bid, $1.9 million a year from Priority One/MedShore.

The council will vote Tuesday on whether to accept the bid. If the bid is accepted, the new EMS system would need to be in place on Sept. 1.

If the council delays or rejects the bid, there isn't enough time for a new bid process before the current contract expires so the current contract would get renewed and the rescue squads would continue providing service.

Ambulances would experience the biggest change 

The biggest change would be how ambulances work and who would arrive for most calls.

If the plan goes through, in most cases someone calling for an ambulance would not get a paramedic.

That is a key, both to supporters and opponents of the change.

For supporters, a paramedic is not needed in almost all ambulance calls and sending people with less training saves much-needed paramedics for the complicated calls.

For detractors, it could mean the people with the most training could arrive critical minutes later after a lesser-trained ambulance operator arrives first and calls for paramedic backup.

Right now Anderson County has 16 and a half ambulances and three quick response vehicles. A quick response vehicle is typically an SUV but equipped like an ambulance, but it cannot carry a patient to a hospital.

Those ambulances and quick response vehicles cover the county, the half ambulance is one that only runs 12 hours a day out of Pendleton.

The new plan would have 17 ambulances and 14 quick response vehicles, adding 11 quick response vehicles.

The change would also, importantly, change who staffs the vehicles.

Right now ambulances are generally staffed with a paramedic and an emergency medical technician (EMT), or one person with advanced life saving certification and another with basic certification.

EMTs generally have a fraction of the training paramedics have and for most emergency calls, a paramedic's skills aren't needed, McCown said.

The change would mean ambulances would most often run with two EMTs, no paramedics, while the quick response vehicles would be driven by a paramedic.

The paramedics would be staged around the county, primarily responding to critical calls that require their higher skills, McCown said.

That is one of the pitfalls, said Teske, the Belton director.

She said the bid doesn't include places for the ambulances to have home bases, that would require fire departments or rescue squads to allow the new ambulance service to operate without compensation.

McCown said the outlying areas, and the more populated areas, would find places to put ambulances because the contract requires service in less than 10 minutes to most emergency calls.

A typical call could be an elderly woman falling, which would only require the aid of an EMT, McCown said. A cardiac arrest call would bring both an ambulance, with EMTs, and a quick response vehicle, with a paramedic, he said.

If the call is serious — like a heart attack — the paramedic would ride in the back of the ambulance with the patient along with the EMTs and they'd go to the hospital.

Currently, paramedics with an ambulance would need to go to the hospital for a simple broken leg call, meaning for an hour or more they aren't available to go to cardiac arrest calls, McCown said.

Bidder, rescue squads want to stop the changes

One of the bidders for the reworking, Ryan Thorne, of Thorne Ambulance Service in Greenville, said he and others are working to bring a legal halt to the change.

There were nine bids submitted, from the rescue squads along with some private companies.

Thorne said eight of the nine bids were made assuming that the county would keep its current staffing levels, paramedics and EMTs together. He said the chosen bid was the only one that accounted for a two-tiered system of paramedics and EMTs.

Thorne said he had filed a legal request to redo the bid process, which he said could lead to a second bidding process that could come back in three to six months for a council vote.

The status of that request was not able to be verified Monday by the Independent Mail.

Thorne said he could submit a competitive bid for the two-tiered system and the rescue squads could come up with a unified or separate bids.

The change would also mean the little things that rescue squads have done quietly over the years go away, Teske said.

She said members of her rescue squad spend the past weekend building a ramp, with donated money and labor, for a patient.

"There are a lot of things that the rescue squads provide to the citizens that no one knows about," she said.

Please subscribe to The Greenville News by visiting
