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Tuesday, March 19, 2024 - 05:50 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Emergency medical, like law enforcement, are some of the more important services provided by county government. When either are unresponsive or uncertain, citizens become concerned and sometimes angry, because lives are involved. The alleged problems with Greenville County EMS management is approaching the “boiling point.”

A decade ago, citizens in Northern and Southern Greenville County waited as much as an hour for an ambulance to arrive from Greenville. Sometimes help arrived too late and the patient died. Others were loaded in private vehicles and taken to the nearest emergency room.

To remedy the situation, local communities added facilities for EMS crews to their fire departments, the county added ambulances and personnel to cover the outlying areas, and for several years there were few if any complaints. The system worked well and earned some top scores and awards from rating services.

A few months ago, rumors spread that someone at County Square was making a deal with the Greenville Health Care System. Naturally, the Bon Secors St. Francis people became concerned that their patients would be left with no EMS services by the county if a secret deal was made with their competition.

Representatives of St. Francis appealed to County Council and were initially told no such thing was happening. Finally, Council learned the truth, could deny it no longer, and it was admitted that Joe Kernell the county administrator was discussing a possible transfer of EMS personnel and equipment to the Greenville Health Care System, and that no decisions had been made.

There are also reports that the Obama Administration at some future date will only pay for Obamacare patients to be transported by ambulances operated by approved hospital systems.

More recently, without discussions with the affected Council members, Joe Kernell, the county administrator, made the decision to move all the outlying ambulances in nearer the city. This obviously would cause longer response times in Northern  and Southern parts of the county. The delays generated complaints.

The justification for the move was apparently that such a system works efficiently in Charlotte, North Carolina. The difference is that Charlotte is a city in the general shape of a circle. Greenville county is a long narrow area to be covered .

Council Chairman Dr. Bob Taylor  explained that the county administrator has the authority to make adjustments to services without advance approval from elected council members. The council members involved believed they should have been given the courtesy of knowing about the change before their constituents began complaining about the long delays.

Councilmen Lynn Ballard and Joe Dill who represent the far-out regions of the county demanded that the ambulances and emergency crews be returned to their original locations.

The current situation with ambulance crews sitting in their vehicles at service stations in the city and surrounding towns has caused obvious morale problems and turnover of trained personnel has become a problem.

Kernell has been accused of intentionally creating the current problems in order to generate support for the alleged deal with the Greenville Health Care system, a charge he denies.

A workshop was held Tuesday, February 3rd  in an attempt to resolve some of the problems and inform the council members of what has taken place between the county  administrator and outside organizations.

An arrangement that was apparently intended to be handled quietly in private has now become very public, and some citizens are calling for an independent auditor to take a look at the entire EMS operation.

Greenville County does not have an auditor. The individual with the title is involved in computing and collecting taxes.

The last real auditor employed by Greenville County was fired and his position  abolished because he refused to remove alleged wrongdoing by council members from an audit report. He went to court and years later, after being poverty stricken because he could not get employment after being fired by Greenville County, the former auditor received a large cash settlement from the county. By that time, his health was gone and his home was literally falling apart from lack of maintenance.

 

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