| Ambulance
to be dispatched by Sheriff's office
The St. Mary’s Hospital Ambulance Service is now being dispatched by the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office. Anyone in the area with a medical emergency should now call 911 rather than the hospital. All local EMT radios have been reprogrammed to only receive pages from the Sheriff’s office. “We’re asking area residents to use the 911 system to activate our EMTs and hospital ambulance,” said Jeanette Gorman, SMHC Community Relations Coordinator. “We understand it may take awhile for people to get used to calling the emergency 911 number. In the meantime, the hospital will continue to manage the issue with great sensitivity with the Emergency calls we may continue to receive. We’d like to assist the public through this transition as efficiently and smoothly as possible.” The change is part of an effort to coordinate all responses to emergencies through one source. “The recent focus on potential bioterrorism threats prompted the development of a more thorough county and region wide response system,” said Gorman. “We have incorporated our ambulance and EMT service with the Idaho County Sheriff’s Dispatch Office so we’ll have an integrated system prepared to respond to any type of emergency.” |
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