JASPER COUNTY, Texas — Jasper County community members previously voiced their concerns on what they called an "unacceptable" issue. Their concerns were met with action from the city.
Community members called for change concerning a shortage of ambulances and paramedics. On Monday night, council members voted to approve a new contract with Allegiance Mobile Health.
The five-year contract will not cost the city Jasper Emergency Services District #4 anything. The contract is expected to increase the number of ambulances that are stationed in the county and improve response times.
The change comes after mounting pressure from first responders.
"Our goal is to have an ambulance in Jasper readily available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so that we don't ever run into a situation again where we don't have an EMS unit available,” Beech Grove Volunteer Fire Department Chief James Gunther said.
Slow EMS response times have plagued Jasper County. First responders previously told 12News it was taking ambulance services 45 minutes to an hour to get to scenes.
Gunther and Jasper Fire Marshal Brandon Duckworth agree the new EMS contract is badly needed.
"I think we took the first step tonight to the way it needed to be a single provider,” Duckworth said.
Officials hope to have five additional ambulances serving the City of Jasper and Jasper ESD #4. First responders believe this will be a gamechanger.
"There is no really number one type of solving, I mean, you're always going to have some type of problem, but hopefully we're [a] step in the right direction,” Duckworth said.
Dan Gillespie with Allegiance Mobile Health said they already have a footprint in rural counties across Southeast Texas, such as Tyler, Orange and Polk. He feels it is great to be able to bring their services to people in hard to reach areas of Jasper County.
“Whenever you can have a single source contract like this where all of the calls are coming through one system, it makes it a lot easier to do predictive staffing and add additional resources and make bigger investments into those areas,” Gillespie said.
The plan put forth by Allegiance is to have no less than three ambulances for emergency calls and two for transporting patients. The company hopes to have four EMS dispatchers stationed in Jasper.
"We think this is going to be a long-term solution,” Gunther said. “We think we're building a relationship here. We're building an EMS system here that will be in place for years to come."
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