Grand Jury Requests Second Air Ambulance Service for SB County (Daily Bulletin May 20, 2006).

In the world of Competition the Grand Jury is Right!! The Mercy Air has had a great Run and it is about time that they taste the real world of competition and they will have to lower their prices and maybe they can see what it is like for the Private Ambulances on the roads, trying to compete with the Firefighter Paramedic's that are one the Meat Wagons covering city's and your re starving on a Private Ambulance and you have a contract with these cities to back the Regular Fire department up on Calls for service when they get a crash with extra ordinary amount of Injuries that are transports which don't' happen very often. They happen but not that often.

Mercy will see , they also will have to go through the expense of moving their base from the Rialto Airport to the San Bernardino Airport, since the Rialto City Council has decided to move away from any History and historical values from the city and they want to make money. Making money, I bet that Ed Scott has purchased land around the Airport too. Just like Garcia. How did I get on this subject when we are talking about mercy air.

Mercy air could not have hauled me faster then the Rialto Fire Paramedics didn't from the Intersection of Holley at Ayala to Loma Linda, it was under 11 minutes. RFD...Awesome job!! Thanks

BSRancher

Grand jury requests second air ambulance service for county Spokesman denies county action was noncompetitive in nature By Andrew Silva, Staff Writer

In its second critical report in six months about how San Bernardino County handles air ambulance services, the grand jury this week said other providers should be allowed to operate here. It also suggested the Board of Supervisors may have a conflict of interest. "We're not criticizing the job Mercy Air is doing. They just need more helicopters," said Brad Kuiper, foreman of this year's grand jury. Mercy Air Services Inc. is the only company with a permit to provide air ambulance services in the county, although other helicopters can respond to incidents under mutual aid agreements. The report titled, "Why isn't there competition?" blasts the Board of Supervisors for blocking a second air ambulance service from getting a permit to operate in the county. The county should seek proposals from other providers to see if service can be improved, the grand jury recommends. County officials stand by their decision to have only one permitted air service for now and said there is no wrongdoing or conflict of interest. Last year's application for a second provider had major problems, officials said. "Never have we adopted a policy of non-competition," county spokesman David Wert said. Back in November, the grand jury accused supervisors of endangering public health in order to protect a campaign contributor by failing to vote on a permit application for a second air ambulance service. Mercy Air Services Inc. has made campaign contributions to some of the supervisors. The fire department in California City, a small Kern County community east of Mojave, applied last year for a permit to allow its helicopter to serve San Bernardino County, although it is on the mutual aid list to respond to incidents here, especially along the dangerous stretches of Highways 395 and 58 in the High Desert. Getting a permit would mean that the helicopter and crew meet all county standards for medicine, equipment and training. More important, it also means the helicopter could participate in the more lucrative business of moving non-emergency patients around. County officials said allowing California City to compete with Mercy Air for non-emergency transfer could lead the company to reduce service. Simply moving California City up on the priority list for dispatch would improve response times in remote areas and would not require a permit that could possibly endanger part of Mercy Air's business, they argued. "We are not concerned with competition," said Roy Cox, program manager for Mercy Air. "The competition always seems to go away." Efforts to reach California City officials were unsuccessful, but local officials said its helicopter has not been operational for some time. California City jumped through all the hoops of getting the permit, and twice received a unanimous vote from the Emergency Medical Care Committee, a panel of medical and emergency services professionals working under the auspices of the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency, which oversees emergency medicine for San Bernardino, Inyo and Mono counties. That California City is not flying at the moment shows it was unreliable, said County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer. In July 2005, a scheduled vote on the permit was delayed indefinitely and never reappeared on the Board of Supervisors agenda. The board sits as the governing body of the medical agency. The grand jury recommends the board seek a second air ambulance provider to provide competition and further says the board should surrender its role as the governing board of the medical agency "to avoid even the appearance of impropriety." The supervisors should also not accept campaign contributions from any ground or air ambulance providers. County officials, as they did in their response to the first report, dismiss the idea that Board of Supervisors should no longer oversee emergency medical services. "The ICEMA board is held accountable by the public," Uffer said. "If you develop a private board, who are they going to be accountable to?" The report also suggests the board members may be guilty of a possible conflict of interest. When elected officials sit on a board or commission different from the one to which they are elected, they are largely prohibited from voting on any issue that could affect a campaign contributor. Attorneys at the county said that rule does not apply when a board simply changes hats, for example, when the Board of Supervisors acts as the governing board of the medical agency.