Ambulance Service Discussion Held at City Council Study Session

Ambulance service was a topic of discussion at Monday night’s Sheridan City Council study session. Sheridan Media’s Ron Richter has the details.

The Sheridan City Council at their May 16 business meeting approved a notice of termination of the contract with Rocky Mountain Ambulance for emergency medical services for the City. The notice of termination stipulated that Rocky Mountain would continue to provide EMS service in the City through November 19. After advertising a Request for Proposals for EMS services, the City received bids from Rocky Mountain Ambulance, American Medical Response, Inc, (AMR) and Northeast Wyoming Ambulance Service. The Council last month awarded the contract to Northeast Wyoming Ambulance Service, which is a partnership  between Campbell County Health (CCH) and Sheridan Memorial Hospital to provide (EMS) services to Sheridan County.

At a City Council study session Monday night, Sheridan Fire Chief Gary Harnish said that since the new EMS contract was awarded, RMA has lost a considerable amount of staff and since the beginning of October, RMA switched to two ambulances during the day and one ambulance at night as their baseline staffing model. Harnish said the City’s contract with RMA for the past 11 years has called for the capability to respond to three consecutive 911 calls and the drop in available ambulances has caused concern for City, County, and Sheridan Memorial Hospital staff. Harnish said they’ve been working with Campbell County Hospital (CCH) EMS staff to come up with a temporary solution and all of the entities met on September 22 to discuss possible solutions.

Harnish said the cost to get to the November 19 start date for Campbell County EMS is $150,000 split three ways between the City, the County, and Sheridan Memorial Hospital. He said he’s identified two potential sources of funding within the Fire Department Budget to cover the $50,000 allocation from the City. The City Council will consider approval of the additional funding at an upcoming business meeting.