A contract extension for Paramedics Plus to provide ambulance service in Sioux Falls should come soon. Farther into the future, the City of Sioux Falls could take over that responsibility.

Paramedics Plus is the entity that has been responding to medical emergencies since 2015 and could do so with the city’s blessing into the middle of the next decade. Mayor Paul TenHaken says his administration is bracing for when Sioux Falls grows too big for a private company to handle it.

“As your city grows, you don’t have a privatized ambulance service forever. It will get to a point where it’s no longer profitable. However, the budgetary issues around that are you have to plan for that for a while and we’ve already started on that. By 2025 this is going to be something we’ll probably have to be in that business."

Presently Paramedics Plus gets a stamp of approval from Mayor TenHaken’s point of view.

“If you look at the guarantees that they are supposed to meet with their service, they’re exceeding that by a long way. Which means they could potentially be (taking measures to) save costs and still be meeting their contract needs. They’re not. I’m going to be supportive of the extension while we work out providing a public ambulance service.”

Mayor TenHaken says the city has already done some initial work in this area with Sioux Falls Fire Rescue providing Advance Life Support on emergency calls.

Regardless of when Sioux Falls runs its own ambulance fleet, lots of questions need to be answered before the city enters that phase.

 

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