County Is Getting A Deal On The Cost To Operate Ambulances
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DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
If you remember last week’s column, you may recall that I mentioned that I might write about octogenarian Don Dalrymple’s skydiving adventures. Two adventures to be exact, one when he turned 80 and he jumped out of an airplane a second time when he turned 85.
Well, Don is a step ahead of me as he said we are going to wait until July to write this sky diving story with a different twist – I am going to be part of the story. I guess you could say he issued a dare, or a challenge, that I would go with him and jump.
“It would be great and a business expense for the newspaper if you write about it,” he argued.
How he finagled me to (almost) agree to that trip, I still don’t know but ole Don would make a pretty good salesman. But if I can get my wife to bless this trip, I just may tag along. Don told me to extend an invitation to others and we can even get a group discount, 10 percent off with five or more people.
For full disclosure, jumpers with no experience do a tandem skydive, meaning you are tethered to an experienced jumper who pulls the chute.
Let me know if you are interesting in jumping out of an airplane and I will put you in touch with Don.
Changing topics, I thought I would offer a little more background information to provide clarity for the story with the request for additional county funding to provide ambulance service. It is a little confusing, as Yalobusha General Hospital, the nursing home and accompanying clinics in the county form Yalobusha Health Services (YHS), and are owned by Yalobusha County. But YHS operates separately from county government. County supervisors appoint members who serve on the hospital’s board of directors.
The hospital board is responsible for hiring an administrator, who is charged with running the hospital, nursing home and clinics.
County operations and hospital operations are completely separate, but if the hospital ever operates in the red the county taxpayers would be on the hook to subsidize operations. Thankfully that hasn’t happened in the 21 years I have been covering the news in Yalobusha County and we have a solid local hospital, but it has happened before. I remember former county supervisor Butch Surrette talking about bailing the hospital out of financial trouble.
Now for additional clarity, the hospital is not responsible for operating the ambulance service in Yalobusha. Instead the Yalobusha County Board of Supervisors is charged with budgeting county funds to fund this service – either by paying the hospital or an outside company to operate ambulances in the county.
With the requested increase, the county will be spending $318,304 per year or $26,525 monthly to have two ambulances responding to calls around the clock. Sounds expensive, but that is half the going rate for similar-sized counties in Mississippi. That’s right, it would cost the county around $600,000 to $650,000 annually if an outside company was hired to provide this service. And the service would not be as good because many times these companies would utilize ambulances from surrounding counties instead of stationing two ambulances in the county road the clock.
We are fortunate to have a county owned hospital. The fact that the hospital absorbs some of the cost to operate the ambulance service, thus saving taxpayer dollars, is a strong testament to the leadership at YHS.
