New agreement could shorten waits for some non-emergency ambulance trips

People waiting for a non-emergency ambulance trip to a hospital, rehabilitation facility or nursing home may get their ride from a private company starting next year.

The city and the county have reached an emergency medical services agreement with more leeway for private-sector contractors to provide service. The pact ends weeks of back-and-forth negotiations between the county, which runs the EMS, and the city, which uses it.

The City Council approved a contract Tuesday, but added language that the county would turn to the private sector if its EMS is unable respond within an hour.

Council member Janet Miller said she was frustrated by the slow pace of change to the system and an agreement that didn’t really spell out what the council and commission agreed to in a joint meeting three weeks ago.

“Just as a reminder, this council was ready to terminate the contract a year ago,” Miller said in Tuesday’s council meeting. “I invested time and effort to get us to do something different so we didn’t terminate it. And here we are a year later and after all these meetings we cannot even put in writing what we agreed to do together.”

Miller changed from a “no” to a “yes” vote after Mayor Jeff Longwell added language toughening the requirement to use private ambulances.

The only “no” vote was council member James Clendenin, who wants patients to be able to call in a private ambulance at their own discretion without having to go through the county system.

Commissioners on Wednesday said their county EMS system is professional and robust, responding to the overwhelming majority of those calls within an hour.

Commissioner David Dennis criticized the city council for the late addition and not negotiating in good faith.

“There was an underlying distrust from the City of Wichita,” Dennis said. “They moved the bar every time we proposed a new contract.”

Howell, the only commissioner to vote no, said he was open to more discussions with the city to keep a similar contract to what’s currently in place.

“It attempts to solve a problem, but it limits our options,” he said of the new contract.

This story was originally published July 19, 2017 at 12:45 PM with the headline "New agreement could shorten waits for some non-emergency ambulance trips."