March 2, 2001

The House, Ways and Means Committee released it's proposed 2000/2001 budget with deep cuts in certain departments, but without the anticipated cut in EMS Grant in Aid.

The Governors budget, released earlier, already had supported not cutting EMS.

Earlier in the year, the SCEMS Association testified before the Health and Human Services subcommittee to ask that the Grant in Aid be spared.

"I know you have a hard job before you," George Rice of Richland County EMS told the committee. "I would ask that you consider not cutting any of the EMS funding".

President Don Lundy also appeared before the committee and explained that amoung the many lives saved through this program was one of their own. A representative who was seriously injured in a car accident a month earlier, was a beneficiary of this program.

"Every tool used to get her out of the vehicle and the ambulance used to take her to the helcipter were purchased with Grant in Aid," he said. "An ambulance was on scene within one minute of the accident. In many States, States without proper funding, you would have waited much longer for an ambulance."

Rep. Carnel told the Association they would do whatever it took to insure the EMS Grant in Aid was not cut.

"I think you people do a wonderful job," he told the Association.