San Benito County currently has no provider of non-emergency ambulance services, and it became a concern for county officials as they renewed the contract with American Medical Response for 911 responses.
Supervisors on Tuesday extended a contract with AMR for five years, but that agreement will again include just emergency responses while excluding non-emergency responses such as those for mental patients put on involuntary holds.
County officials heard from Mental Health Director Alan Yamamoto regarding involuntary confinement for people who are a danger to others or themselves. They also heard from San Benito Health Care District President Gordon Machado and AMR General Manager Doug Petrick, who stressed that the business can’t make the non-emergency services economical due to a lack of volume in the area.
Still, Machado expressed concern that the lacking service is a problem and can prompt the hospital, which often covers the cost, to scurry for other transportation help.
“It doesn’t happen that often but it does happen,” Machado said.
Petrick said he would be happy to sit down with county officials to help them figure out a solution for non-emergency calls, but that the agreement OK’d Tuesday was just for the 911 services.
“AMR has been meeting all of the contractual requirements that you see before you,” he said. “It’s not an issue for us.”
Petrick, who oversees the region, said the company can’t risk sending an ambulance out of town to a mental health facility because it would leave just one emergency crew available during that time. He said AMR recently tried sharing one non-emergency vehicle from Santa Cruz with the county.
“Even sharing it between the two counties, there was not enough call volume to pay for the cost of the unit we had on duty,” he said.
