Viability of rural ambulance services in South Dakota at risk due to staffing and funding shortages
About a third of rural ambulance directors in South Dakota said they couldn’t respond to a call because of staffing shortages, according to a 2016 survey. Roughly a third more said response times were delayed due to lack of staffing.
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Danielle Ferguson / South Dakota News Watch | 12:49 pm, May 4, 2021 ×
Nicole Neugebauer, a former South Dakota EMT of the Year, is pictured with a Douglas County Ambulance in Armour. Neugebauer is the Armour ambulance director. (Caitlynn Peetz/Republic)
Rural ambulance services in South Dakota are having an increasingly hard time recruiting volunteers and generating revenues, putting the stability of the services at risk and making it more likely that rural residents will endure longer response times in emergencies or possibly lose ambulance service altogether.
Rural ambulance services see decline in volunteers, funding
Danielle Ferguson, South Dakjota News WatchMay 3, 2021News
Photo by Nichole NeugebauerSome rural ambulance services in South Dakota, including the Douglas County Ambulance Service in Armour, are healthy and functioning well despite ongoing challenges to maintain staffing and funding levels. Nicole Neugebauer, front right with hands clasped, is an officer in the South Dakota Ambulance Association who was named state EMT of the year in 2015.
SIOUX FALLS, SD – Rural ambulance services in South Dakota are having an increasingly hard time recruiting volunteers and generating revenues, putting the stability of the services at risk and making it more likely that rural residents will endure longer response times in emergencies or possibly lose ambulance service altogether.
Green River Star -
April 29, 2021
The historic revenue crisis facing Wyoming’s state, county and municipal governments is threatening to claim yet another casualty: universally available ambulance service.
The state-wide problem is perhaps most acute in Fremont County, where a five-year-old cost-saving plan has unraveled, leaving the nearly Vermont-sized region without a single outfit interested in providing service beyond June.
Amid an economic downturn and significant budget cuts, Fremont County Commissioners opted to privatize the county’s ambulance service in March 2016.
The cost of the county-run ambulance service had been rising, resulting in a $1.2 million budget request. The county’s assessed tax base dropped 27% that year.
Rural ambulance services in South Dakota are having an increasingly hard time recruiting volunteers and generating revenues, putting the stability of the services at risk and making it more likely that rural residents will endure longer response times in emergencies or possibly lose ambulance service altogether.
While most larger cities in South Dakota have professional ambulance services or fire departments with paid staff members, rural services rely mostly on volunteers. In recent years, those rural providers have seen fewer people willing to volunteer and those who do volunteer are older residents who are aging out of the workforce.
About a third of rural ambulance directors in South Dakota said they couldn’t respond to a call because of staffing shortages, according to a 2016 survey. Roughly a third more said response times were delayed due to lack of staffing.
A survey of Greenville County Emergency Medical Services staff conducted to gauge concerns after a tumultuous year of low morale and staffing shortages is sounding alarms after deliberate changes were made to spur improvements.
The independent, anonymous survey of technicians and paramedics conducted by SafeTech Solutions in November 2020 found that low morale, distrust in leadership and ambulances believed to be inadequately staffed were on the minds of some Greenville County EMS employees.
While pay and efforts to promote diversity on staff were rated highly in the survey, concerns included employees perceptions of deployment strategy and not being heard, considered or respected by leadership.