It all starts on Monday at 10 AM with a press conference;

News conference to share the 2017 annual Ambulance Contract Performance Report

What is troubling about this report on Monday and later on Tuesday at the informational meeting is that the city council will get a first reading (Item #8) on a rate increase for Paramedics Plus Tuesday night at the council meeting, hardly enough time to review the increase. Why wasn’t this report provided a couple weeks in advance of the 1st Reading? Either way, due to the complicated contract, the council has NO choice but to approve the increase. So why even vote on it?

Item #6, the council will be voting on giving affordable housing more money. I have been a little critical of this program because instead of spending the money to refurbish older homes (which would be more equitable and give us more affordable housing) the city tears down houses and builds new homes that 1) don’t really fit into the neighborhoods 2) sell at a loss (to taxpayers) to make them ‘affordable’. I think to preserve neighborhoods we should be focusing on refurbishing older homes instead of bulldozing them. $2 million dollars could probably save 60-70 homes from destruction instead of just building a dozen new homes.

A father wants answers and closure following the accidental death of his son but no one in authority will help him. Most involved seem to have a reason to not help Brian Neal of Sioux Falls. So on June 28, 2017 he attended the Sioux Falls Regional Medical Authority (REMSA) meeting in search of anyone who would help him figure out why a phantom ambulance was sent first for his dying son back in April.

No ambulances available is a daily occurrence in Sioux Falls, SD. So what do we do about it? We do not condone this behavior or blame our hard working ambulance staff. Like Brian, we are looking for answers to many questions.

Remember our contract compliant ambulance service? You know the one, proudly exclaiming they found an answer to Level Zero or “no ambulances available” service? Their answer is to issue a 980 call, sending out a phantom ambulance to keep contract compliant.

How many phantom ambulances have you seen on Sioux Falls streets since the program mere mortals aren’t able to understand, was put into effect? Our city of Sioux Falls Health department actually said it was too complicated to explain so guess what? We have to accept people dying or permanently disabled because the phantom 980 ambulance didn’t show up.

Just ask your neighbors, the Orvilles, Brians, Joshuas and more searching for answers while missing all or part of their lives. Do you want to be the next victim of a contract compliant phantom ambulance or a served by a real one?

Publisher’s Note: I encourage everyone to watch this entire video. When I advocate for transparency and recording ALL public meetings, there are reasons why; important discussions and decisions are made in these VOLUNTEER PUBLIC BOARD MEETINGS. While it may make the board members uncomfortable, open government is important. If any of these members take issue with this, they can, at anytime, for any reason resign.

Don’t you love it when we call for an ambulance and they send out the phantom? Why should you expect an ambulance to show up in an emergency? Who do you think you are anyway? 980, what’s a 980?

Recently speakers in this video went public stating the use of the phrase “phantom” ambulances when they aren’t sending you one was a bad choice of words. Not bad policy, just a bad use of words. This city board is the Sioux Falls Regional Emergency Medical Authority or REMSA. Listen for the problem we have with this board’s responsibility. A 980 ambulance is a phantom or fake ambulance. A method designed to skirt contract penalties for not showing up.

The board’s mission is contract compliance first. Got that? We have a contract to give an authorized ambulance monopoly to a company who hornswoggled our town’s top notch contract negotiators. Nowhere in the contract is patient care the top priority. We have city employees who seem to find ways to keep 980 or phantom ambulances in contract compliance while people drive themselves to the hospital, if they are still breathing.

This meeting usually lasts less than an hour on the last Wednesday of the month if they meet at all in an out of the way meeting room in the health department. They complain the public doesn’t show up to see them and then don’t want to be recorded. Well, Cameraman Bruce decided to show up on June 28, 2017 to catch the public’s phantom 980 wambulance wrath.

Paramedics Plus also runs an EMS school in Sioux Falls

I’m not sure what plans the company has, if any. But if they are looking to sell it would have little to do with the recent ‘Phantom’ ambulance fiasco.

As you know, the company as a whole is being investigated in almost every state they are in by the Feds except in South Dakota (so far). It wouldn’t be to far-fetched for them to cut their losses and get out of the Sioux Falls market before that hammer drops, if it ever does.

Let’s say they do sell, how will that affect ambulance service in Sioux Falls? Will we have to start the contract process over before the buyer can just move in?

Like I said, I have no idea if they are looking to sell, but something to ponder if it does happen.