Members of the Yazoo County Board of Supervisors say that they are getting too many complaints about the quality of ambulance service in the county.
Slow response times is the complaint board members say they hear most frequently. The board plans to meet with MedStat officials to see if those problems can be corrected.
Yazoo County resident Eric Taylor complained to the board that it took an ambulance over 30 minutes to get to an emergency call when his sister was suffering from chest pains near the county high school just a few miles outside of town.
“My mother kept calling 911 saying, ‘Where are y’all?’” Taylor said.
Taylor said that after his sister was picked up, the ambulance was then driving so slowly as it returned to hospital that his sister demanded to be allowed to exit the ambulance.
“She said that if that was as fast as they were going to go, to just let her out,” he said.
Taylor, who was following the ambulance to the hospital, said his sister exited the ambulance, and he took her on to the hospital in his vehicle.
“They pulled back over to the side, and I could see her ripping the stuff off of her arms,” Taylor said. “She jumped out of the ambulance, and she could have ran out in front of a moving car or anything.”
District 3 Supervisor Willie “Deuce” Wright said he regularly hears concerns about the ambulance service.
“We’ve been having problems,” said Wright.
“This is a serious problem,” said Board President Cobie Collins.
“They are supposed to answer a call within a certain timeframe,” said District 1 Supervisor Van Foster.
“We’re hearing a lot of concerns about it since MedStat was bought out by another company,” said District 4 Supervisor Jayne Dew.
Dew said that AMR, the company which previously operated the county’s ambulance service, now owns controlling ownership of MedStat.
Jack Willingham, Yazoo County’s Emergency Management director, said he will schedule a meeting with officials from the ambulance service and the county.
