WY Governor Mark Gordon Praises WY Regional EMS At Sheridan Open House

Two Northeast Wyoming hospitals recently celebrated their partnership in terms of ambulance service.

It’s been about 10 months since the Sheridan Memorial Hospital and Campbell County Memorial Hospital joined forces to create the Wyoming Regional Emergency Medical Services.

Before then, the city of Sheridan and Sheridan County was using Rocky Mountain Ambulance which was an independent ambulance service.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, through his Health Task Force, has been making a push for regional ambulance service because it’s been difficult for an independent ambulance service to thrive in rural populations.

While a regional ambulance service may also have its downsides such as the cost of operations, as well as staff and volunteer shortages, he says a regional service may be better to tackle a growing problem that is affecting both regional and independent services.

“The biggest problem is that the equipment has gotten much more sophisticated and much more expensive. The regionalization will help sustain this process much better and that’s what’s critical is being able to meet the needs where they are and being able to shift those resources to where they need to be.”

At an open house event in Sheridan on Tuesday (September 5th), Governor Gordon praised Wyoming Regional EMS and said a good example of their service was when the tornado hit the mine in southeast Campbell County in late June.

Most of the ambulance services out of Gillette were needed for that situation, and crews out of Sheridan were able to fill the void in Gillette, until the situation was under control.