Pickens Co. loses one of its two ambulances
PICKENS COUNTY, Alabama. (WCBI) – Emergency healthcare in Pickens County has been a pressing issue ever since the hospital closed in March of 2020.
Residents tell me more than one patient died because medical help was not available in time.
Over the last year, many community leaders have worked to find a solution.
One being a 24-hour ambulance service and a 16-hour emergency service – which they accomplished last Spring.
Even with 2, they were still dealing with delays, multiple calls and some overlapping.
But this week, everything changed when the announcement was made that as of Friday October 25, only one 24-hour ambulance will provide services to the entire county.
Manager of Pickens County Ambulance Vicky McCrory said she believes this will have a terrible impact.
“The second unit helped more than most people realize. Even though we still had extended wait times, simply because we don’t have a hospital in the county. That’s about to double because we’re down to one unit now,” McCrory said.
She also stated that with only one ambulance and multiple patients that need transportation, this forces them to become reliant on other counties or helicopter services.
Carrollton Mayor Mickey Walker said it’s almost like going back to square one.
It all boils down to a lack of funding.
“Some of the towns are just stressed. Our budgets are real slim. I can speak for the town of Carrollton. We did have it in our budget to do it. We were absolutely stressing our budget to do it. But some of the other towns just don’t have the means to do it. That’s what the citizens got to understand is, we were doing everything we could for this short period to try to get the ambulance service up on their feet, hoping they could maintain or take some of the burden off of us,” said Walker.
The county was taking the biggest hit, spending over $13,000 a month to help provide an ambulance service.
Mayor Walker said they are continuing to try to find a solution, but it won’t be a quick one.
One option they are looking into would be adding extra funding to car tags.
“We’d like for that to be put up for citizens to vote on. We’re not just gonna put an extra fee on the tags. It needs to be up to the citizens and that gives them an opportunity to vote,” said Walker.
Walker told WCBI that this is going to take patience and helping each other. He also advises not to call the ambulance service if you don’t really need them.
“The situation is bad. We’ve got to have some help through state or federal. We can continue to keep doing all the things we’re doing overseas, but we’re not getting any help here. We’ve got to have help to help maintain this. We are doing everything we can do,” said Walker.
Employees are not losing their jobs, they are being moved to different locations.
Mayor Mickey Walker stressed that if they could get the Emergency Room back open in Pickens County, that would solve a lot of the issues.
