Scioto County EMS Launches “Stop, Think Before You Call” Campaign

SCIOTO COUNTY, OHIO (WSAZ) – Officials say emergency medical services are stretched due to the pandemic, lack of volunteers, paid professionals and overuse of emergency services for non-emergency situations .

Many service calls take long periods of time to find personnel to answer them.

County leaders fear this could lead to the death of a critical patient.

Dr. William Angelos, medical director for Scioto County EMS, says it’s something they see almost daily.

“We found that some people in the community were using it for taxi services,” he said. “They weren’t suitable for EMS transport. It affects your neighbor, these are the issues we were trying to encourage people, if you need 911, you call 911, just think, do I really need an ambulance for this situation or not? »

They ask the public to help ease the crisis and “Stop before you call”.

“It happens that some townships don’t have a team to cover their EMS and we end up calling the neighboring township to cover them, if they cover it, it leaves their township without service,” said Doug Buckle, coordinator of the 911. .

They want the public to think before calling a squad or ambulance for a sprained ankle, stomach pain or other non-life-threatening symptoms and only call when a person’s condition seems to put their life threatening, or that its condition could worsen and become fatal, or the movement of a person could cause further damage or injury.

“People having heart attacks,” Dr. Angelos said. “Time is muscle. Getting them in and getting them to the catheterization lab quickly is important, so this happens daily. People will wait too long to call EMS, by the time EMS comes, they are so critical that they can’t be saved.

Ohio law also states that an ambulance must take you to a hospital, not an urgent care facility.

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