Henry County Health Center halts county EMS discussion

MT. PLEASANT - The Henry County Health Center will temporarily halt discussions about emergency medical services with the county supervisors.

Henry County Health Center Chief Executive Officer Robb Gardner asked the hospital's board of trustees at their meeting on Tuesday to approve a drafted letter which will be presented to the supervisors on Thursday.

Conversations between the hospital and the county began last fall to explore different avenues to provide EMS service to the residents of Henry County. The hospital revealed it was losing approximately $670,000 in Medicare reimbursement funds by continuing to run the service.

'Obviously, it's clear that both parties have a lot of concern over making sure that EMS is there to provide services to our Henry County residents,” Gardner said.

The CEO noted several proposals have been discussed.

An EMS committee, established in December 2019, reviewed possible options including contracting with a private service and the county taking over the service.

In subsequent months, the supervisors worked to determine how the county would be able to take over the service and fund EMS through a levy.

At a supervisors work session in July, Henry County Health Center's Chief Operating Officer Michelle Rosell offered an option which would see the county levy to cover the losses the hospital incurs because of EMS. That would circumvent a complete transfer of the service to the county.

The supervisors were working toward making sure a levy would be presented on the November ballot to cover those costs. An agreement and draft of the ballot language would have had to be ready by early August to make it onto the ballot.

Gardner noted the 'late nature” of the discussions prompted the hospital to recommend halting conversations 'to better evaluate what's best for the EMS program moving forward.” The CEO noted there were still a number of issues.

'We may want to come back to the supervisors at a later time to restart those conversations about EMS,” Gardner added.