Excerpts from wandtv.com:
In less than a year, Mattoon has gone from three ambulance services to one. Now, the city council is placing a moratorium on a new service trying to come to town for up to the next six months.
The city pulled the fire department out of ambulance business in July 2018, citing budget issues. Last week, Dunn’s Ambulance Service announced it was leaving the city due to staffing issues. Mitchell-Jerdan is now the only ambulance provider left.
The local firefighters union is still trying to get the city to reconsider the ambulance service as they also negotiate a new labor contract. Union president Bart Owen says Mitchell-Jerdan has had issues fulfilling the need on its own in the past.
“It hate to say ‘wait and see’ again, but we’ll have to watch this,” Owen said. “We are not staffing [our ambulances]. They are in storage…they are technically still an option here. But we’re being told they’re not an option at this time.”
But the mayor and city council have remained firm: the city-run ambulance service was cost this city money and wasn’t viable long term.
“Do you want us to cut police officers?” asked city commissioner Preston Owen. “Do you want us to cut ambulance services duplicated? Do you want us to stop filling potholes? That’s the choice.”
#1 by Big Moe on March 22, 2019 - 9:01 AM
Mattoon needs to get a clue. No government service makes money , otherwise the private sector would complete that business model. That is the role of government; to perform necessary functions for the good of the community that no private business can or will do. Policing doesn’t pay for itself, street sweeping and snow plowing does not and neither does a library or a building code dept., but everyone wants that service so government provides them at a reasonable cost by sharing the burden over the entire community via taxes and user fees. Get a clue and realize that EMS is a part of being in a responsible, caring political boundary whose role is to serve the public, not net a profit. Thank you.
#2 by Mike on March 21, 2019 - 11:06 PM
LOL…. nice job city of mattoon. You should have left things well enough alone and listened to your firemen when they told you this was going happen.