The Guthrie County Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council was formed to help provide EMS services to the entire county, and show how EMS is an essential service.

County Health Services Director Jotham Arber says that one of the biggest issues the Council is working to address is that there are no paid services on the western side of the county, just a few small volunteer ones. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio why that can be an issue.

“Sometimes, because we don’t have any paid staff on this side, we’re waiting for volunteers that never arrive because they just don’t have volunteers there. That’s the nature of being a volunteer. They have other jobs, right? So sometimes, it can take upwards of 30 minutes to get a response to some parts of the county. Those are very big gaps.”

Arber explains that while a countywide service can’t be guaranteed to get there in the first 10 minutes, he does believe that it would at least cut the current time by half.