Apparently there are some negotiations under way with the Somervell County Hospital District regarding ambulances. Back in 2019, I had had some questions about ambulance service in Somervell County which were answered at the time by the Fire/EMS Department.
Looks like time to understand just who has ambulances, whether Somervell County citizens are charged for ambulance use for in county versus transferring to out of county, should SCHD get a cut of the ambulance money if they are used as backups, does SCHD use Somervell County’s ambulances or do they contract, say, with another county for ambulance service, are Pecan Plantation’s ambulances in Hood County still being used at all, etc.
But this is not entirely why I am posting about this. Look at the agenda item. Do you understand what this is about and why you might want to attend? Who, after all, is an open meeting for if not so put sunlight on government activities on our behalf and including citizens who might wish to attend to comment or understand so that the elected, not operating in a vacuum, can take other opinions into account? Saying that according to the Texas Open Meetings Act, a notice must be enough to alert the public, in general terms, the subjects that will be considered. “Old business”, “new business”, “other business”, “personnel” and “litigation matters” are usually not considered detailed enough to comply with the Act”. And I would argue that “term sheet agreement’ is not either.
I called my commissioner and talked with him about this to determine just what this is reference to (and suggested that maybe the description could have included ambulance service/EMS.
IF, for example, Somervell County is going to get out of the business of operating ambulances and EMS (including perhaps having a trained paramedical going on all rides) and deciding what type of ambulance ride is an emergency versus not, etc, and wants someone else to do it, then I think citizens need to know and understand and have at least enough facts to weigh in to his or her commissioner. Glen Rose Medical Center is not a trauma level 4 hospital, so depending on the severity of an accident or issue, a person would need to be taken someone else anyway other than locally. Air ambulances are really expensive, but maybe that’s what would happen anyway with a 3rd party service to take a critically injured person to, say, a Fort Worth hospital and it wouldn’t involve local ambulances anyway. Apparently if there is a term sheet agreement in process, then there are some things between Somervell County and Somervell County Hospital District that are in dispute or still being worked out. Somervell County levies taxes as does SCHD so it doesn’t make sense IF both are doing ambulance, ems (and I do not know if they both are, but have heard without verified source that SCHD might be contracting with Hamilton County for ambulance service and we know that in years passed they contacted with Pecan Plantation in Hood County;-DO NOT KNOW if they are doing that now) for both governmental entities to be taxing the citizens. Saying it matters what the terms of such an agreement would be. But I think it should be discussed more with more openness and transparency.
Anybody that knows more about what the current issues are with EMS/Ambulance that might be lending itself to this question of consolidating service, please feel free to weigh in.
