The Jacksonville Ambulance Commission approved two long-delayed recommendations last Thursday after a called meeting at the Jacksonville Municipal Building.
The Ambulance Commission had failed to meet quorum in May and June due to scheduling conflicts and because of a lack of members. The Jacksonville City Council filled vacancies on the commission last month, and also recommended Ward Three Alderman Joe Lockman to the final spot on the commission on Monday. Lockman’s spot fills the final vacancy.
Morgan County Emergency Management Director and West Central Illinois Joint Dispatch Coordinator Phil McCarty says that the commission approved a recommendation for a second ambulance service and updates to the current city ordinance governing emergency ambulance services after a lot of debate: “During last Thursday’s meeting, the commission took action to accept the application for ECHO Ambulance to provide ambulance service for the city as well as update the ordinance for the ambulance providers that are licensed here in the City of Jacksonville. One of the major things [about the updated ordinance] is it is making it more accurate as far as what current practices are. Even though the fine structure for those who fail to meet the ordinance requirements has caught the most attention, our current ordinance doesn’t provide an accurate picture of what current practices are and what dispatch is doing and what the providers are doing. The greatest volume of the changes reflects what is happening. There is a fee structure as well as a fine structure for those that aren’t providing the services that they said they would provide. That piece has not been in place in the past, and there is a mechanism and means for that to be enacted.”
McCarty says the recommendations will come up as an action item either at the end of this month or the first city council meeting in September.
McCarty says that the implementation of ECHO into the city’s emergency response mechanisms will take some time to start once it’s approved by the city council: “There will be some logistical things that will have to be put in place to make sure that ECHO is ready for the operations as well as West Central Joint Dispatch. We’ve been working on this. Their application came in February, so getting it deployed appropriately would be just as important as getting it deployed in a timely fashion. Yes, we don’t want it to take up too much time, but we have waited this long to get it right. Let’s make sure we get it deployed in a manner that works both for our existing provider and for the city as a whole. There’s some logistical, operational things that was discussed in last Thursday’s meeting – as an example – how we are going to rotate calls and things such as that. We have to have some meetings with local leadership of ECHO as well as LifeStar just to make sure that we can meet the needs and so that everybody’s on the same page in how we’re going to communicate, etc. A lot of that conversation is more operational and procedural than governmental, ordinance-wise stuff.”
McCarty says that competition is good to make everyone better, but he says the city needs to make sure that measurement of that competition doesn’t endanger people’s lives or lessen the quality of service to the public.
The Journal Courier reports that after the end of last Thursday’s meeting President of LifeStar Roger D. Campbell and co-owner of ECHO Ambulance Danny Kloever, exchanged business cards and pledged to work together to serve Jacksonville’s emergency services needs.
ECHO has been handling patient transfers for Jacksonville Memorial Hospital since August 2023. Their operations are currently based out of the former America Ambulance Service building at 948 North Main Street.
McCarty says that a wrap up of a commissioned study on emergency services in the county is expected within the next 90 days. One of the arguments made by Campbell and LifeStar was that the city would not support having two ambulance providers. Campbell also pointed to America Ambulance Service leaving the city “high and dry” in the middle of the night in April 2018.
Under its agreement with the city, LifeStar is required to have three fully staffed ambulances on duty around the clock. From 2023 until the beginning of 2024, LifeStar met the city ordinance 2% of the time and 80% of the time had only two units available due to staffing levels. Campbell has argued that the current environment makes its hard to license new EMTs as well as be able to pay that new staff competitive wages to stay in the profession.
McCarty says that some of that apprehension still existed at yesterday’s meeting, including with the new outlined fine structure for an ambulance service not meeting the new ordinance’s standards.
He says that the rotation of calls, competition, and the commission’s vision of providing the best service for Jacksonville is now on a clearer path.