Over the past couple weeks I’ve been monitoring the situation with Owensville and the lack of EMS resources.
Did you know that Owensville EMS has furloughed multiple full time employees?
They also cut the hours of full time employees causing them to take a huge pay cut. Owensville EMS also runs approximately 1,500 to 1,700 calls per year and up until now they’re running three trucks daily and two at night.
Now they have cut staffing to only one truck three to four days a week and only two occasionally.
Gerald EMS has been covering the Owensville area multiple times daily! That means if your family needs an ambulance due to an emergency, depending on the location of your residence, it may take an additional 15 to 20 minutes to receive crucial medical care.
15-20 minutes is enough cost someone their life.
This is unacceptable and puts everyone in the Owensville Area at risk.
The first responders that take care of us are not where we should be cutting costs, and to make it worse, I don’t believe that anyone was publicly informed of these changes. As a tax payer and Owensville resident, I believe these changes should have been made public.
I for one am not okay with our first responders being punished, especially when they are putting their lives at risk daily to take care of the public. I am also not okay waiting 15 to 20 minutes longer for emergency medical care for myself, my kids, or my family in general.
Making a decision like this may also cause experienced providers to leave and look for opportunities elsewhere with services who were more financially prepared for a situation like COVID19. This would result in younger, inexperienced clinicians and a lack of overall resources for the Owensville area.
This should have been made public much sooner and announced so that tax payers could let their opinions be known.
