BRUNSWICK COUNTY — After an emergency meeting was called, with verbose feedback from Southport City Council against having to put their EMS crews on standby due to a new franchise agreement with the county, the two government entities have come to a resolve.
READ MORE: ‘Grab of power by Brunswick County’: Southport leaders scoff at new EMS agreement
City of Southport and Brunswick County staff met on Friday to discuss the agreement. Due to Southport upgrading from emergency medical technician to paramedic care levels, its outreach for EMS changes due to state statute. All municipal EMS agencies function under the county systems within which they operate.
“One of the key benefits of the System is that it ensures our municipal and agency EMS partners will automatically have ambulance service for their traditional service area in the event their crews are busy responding to other calls or transporting patients to the hospital, and vice versa,” Brunswick County EMS Director Lyle Johnston said in a county press release. “The EMS System provides redundancy so that we can get an ambulance to someone in need as quickly and effectively as possible.”
Southport officials were concerned the new franchise agreement would mandate its crews be located far away from its coastal town more frequently and by proxy decline its current 3-minute-and-45-second response times to taxpayers within its bounds. Brunswick County is the fourth-largest county by land area in North Carolina, so if Southport crews were sent to Ash, for example, it would be roughly 45 minutes away to return to a localized call.
According to the county: “Putting a municipal EMS crew on standby does not mean the ambulance will be regularly sent far away from its usual service area.”
The agreement also doesn’t indicate that an ambulance always will be on standby.
“Should the EMS System request a municipal or agency crew go on standby, it would be for a specific period of time and at a set location,” a press release noted.
Officials in Southport — which employs five paramedics, 35 EMTs and owns three ambulances, with another on the way — called out the county at an emergency meeting hosted Oct. 21.
Southport informed Brunswick County, according to its Fire Chief Charles Drew, in July, that Southport would stop doing standbys with the city’s ambulance outside its jurisdiction. This was decided upon at a budget session, Drew said. However, he informed the county that a paramedic quick response vehicle could be utilized as available and necessary.
However, the county EMS supervisor can request assistance from Southport’s units per the new language in the franchise agreement. Drew told commissioners at the meeting:
“The language in this new franchise agreement is a grab of power by Brunswick County government. We are mutual aid partners. If there is an incident, we will respond to their call for help. We are not saying that we won’t respond. However, dictating that a Southport ambulance should cover calls or standbys in Ash, in Longwood, in Navassa, in Northwest is completely preposterous when the citizens of Southport are paying for this service, and Brunswick County contributes zero.”
A Brunswick County spokesperson told PCD it was shocked by the emergency meeting and some of the rumors projected there. According to Brunswick’s communications director, Meagan Kascsak, the franchise agreement was a draft only, and the city and county had been in discussions for almost a year about how its EMS upgrade to paramedic level would trigger changes. More so, she said they had already scheduled a meeting to discuss the concerns the same week as Southport’s emergency meeting was called.
“Leadership from both organizations met this past Friday [Oct. 25] to discuss the draft agreement and clarify any misunderstandings,” a press release from the county noted, adding each are on the same page now per state administrative code.
Both are establishing agreed-upon EMS base locations for Southport crews to go on standby, as to ensure it’s in appropriate proximity to the town’s boundaries as well.
“The City of Southport continues to partner with the County, and these joint decisions do not jeopardize our duty or safety to our citizens,” Drew said in the county’s press release. “With these arrangements, the City will still achieve great response times and stellar pre-hospital care to our citizens, which is our main goal.”
According to the release, the county has a response time goal of 12 minutes, reached more than 90% of the time last year.
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