With this year’s Iowa Legislative Session still in the early stages, one Republican lawmaker is continuing to fight for emergency medical services.

District 47 Representative Phil Thompson says several EMS bills are currently being worked on through the House State Government Committee, which he vice-chairs. He wants to secure as many funds as possible, while also working on policy reforms to give local governments more control and spending flexibility for EMS. Thompson explains, this issue is important to him as his mother died in 2011.

“As I try to figure out what the problem was and point my finger at who’s fault it was that it took so long to get to her? The answer really was we don’t have resources out here in rural Iowa. We don’t have the infrastructure, and the resources in place, and the people ready to take those calls and get those response times down. For me that’s the end goal, how do we get response times down in rural Iowa? The answer simply is we’ve got to make these resources more readily available and we’ve got to fund EMS.”

Thompson wants more funds for training and recruiting new emergency medical technicians (EMT) and re-certifying current ones. Thompson is hoping to increase the $300,000 line item for EMS in the state’s budget to $5-$10 million. To hear more from Thompson listen to today’s Community State Bank in Paton Let’s Talk Greene County program.