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Sarah Porter, Director of the Grundy County Ambulance Service, presented the program at the Thursday, June 9 meeting of the Trenton Rotary Club, held at the BTC Bank community room. Brian Upton presided at the meeting, Joe MacDonald gave the prayer and Jackie Soptic was the program chairman.
Ms. Porter told about her medical background, which began in the military. She came to Trenton from Texas. The local ambulance service has both paramedics and EMTs working on its staff and provides two staffed ambulances (1 paramedic, 1 EMT in each) full-time, with rare exceptions. She noted that the paramedic/EMT field is experiencing a staff shortage nationwide and that Grundy County is down two full-time paramedics as well as part-time paramedics and EMTs. To meet the current shortage, the local service will have one full-time staffed ambulance available on Friday and Saturdays from 7 pm to 7 am until additional paramedics and EMTs can be added.
Paramedics require over 2,000 hours of training while 160 hours is the general requirement for EMTs. Paramedics are allowed to perform many more services, thus the additional required training. She said she is working with the county commission to increase pay to attract paramedic/EMT Staff. It was noted that Grundy County is only one of three counties in the state of Missouri to operate an ambulance service. All other services are operated by a district with an elected board to oversee operations. Grundy County collects a general revenue tax to help pay for the ambulance operations.
Ms. Porter said the ambulance service has a good working relationship with the local fire department, with which the ambulance shares space, as well as Wright Memorial Hospital, where the majority of local ambulance patients are taken. In the last year, the local service answered 1,150 9-1-1 calls and performed 750+ transfers.
During the business meeting, It was announced that Megan Taul has been officially certified to serve as a counselor for the Rotary Exchange student the club will be hosting during 2022-2023. Members also signed up to put up and take down U.S. flags around the courthouse on Flag Day.
