March 26, 2001

Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., proposed federal legislation Wednesday that could help keep rural ambulance services alive.

During a conference call this morning, Daschle said his bill would make $50 million in federal money available to fortify the most anemic emergency medical service providers in the country.

Daschle said, "This is $50 million a year that would be provided for the purchase of equipment and for finding ways with which to ensure that we can continue to improve emergency medical care in rural states.

"Prompt, reliable emergency medical care can make a big difference in our quality of life and in what happens when someone is seriously injured," he said.

Maintaining ambulance service in largely rural areas is difficult because providers frequently respond to too few calls to generate a profit or even the funds necessary to keep the service operational. Daschle said he introduced the legislation "to help correct that problem."

He said, "Ambulance and emergency service in rural parts of our state is a very important and critical question relating to that quality of life."

Daschle said, if his bill becomes law, the legislation would help maintain "high quality, emergency medical services for people living in rural states." The bill would apply to several ambulance service providers in South Dakota.

"This money would be provided to emergency medical units on the basis of need as well as on the basis of population," Daschle said.

He said, "Obviously, we want to be as responsive and as helpful as we can, but we wanted to go where it can do the most good. So it would be based largely on those criteria."

The owner and operator of the local ambulance service, Dakota Emergency Medical Service, recently asked for additional subsidy from area governments. Bob Hardwick had said DEMS is self-sufficient in terms of equipment, but he needed help to hire qualified employees.

Daschle did not mention whether his pending legislation would address staffing problems faced by rural ambulance providers like DEMS. The question was asked, but Daschle was still responding to a question regarding another topic.