GEARY – The board of the Geary 522 district agreed last week to enter into a contract with Pafford, an Arkansas-based medical services company that focuses on rural areas, to provide ambulance services for the district for the next several months.
The move comes after longtime Geary EMS provider Medic West was abruptly dismissed.
Preston White, operations manager for Pafford in western Oklahoma, addressed the Geary City Council at their meeting, which immediately followed the 522 board’s last Thursday, Aug. 5.
White explained that Pafford had been contacted by the 522 board on Friday, July 30, to see if they could “bridge a gap” in services.
“We came out Friday evening, and had an ambulance out here by, I think, 8:30, ready to respond to the citizens’ needs,” White said. Pafford will now provide ambulance services to Geary through at least Nov. 25, when Geary is scheduled to have contracted with a new service provider.
Earlier this summer, Geary submitted a request for proposals for ambulance service in the 522 district. The number “522” refers to 1976 Oklahoma state question that allowed rural areas to create their own EMS districts; it was designed to provide better service to rural residents by letting them chip in together for a locally based ambulance service.
Geary’s 522 district includes all areas served by Geary Public Schools, though historically Watonga EMS has continued to respond to some of that northern territory.
Blaine County Emergency Management Director Jim Shelton and Geary director Cody McPherson told The Geary Star that the district’s request for proposals was not about getting rid of Medic West, which was invited and encouraged to submit a bid; rather, it was an opportunity to revisit the contract to possibly secure better services or better terms.
But the district invited Pafford to step in for Medic West on July 30, the directors said, after Medic West was unavailable to respond to a call inside Geary city limits. The response time was unacceptably high, they said, though the citizen involved is now OK.
Now Pafford and other companies will have the opportunity to vie for a long-term contract with the district. Pafford’s interim agreement is worth $22,000 per month.
“We are a small-town ambulance service,” White told the city council. “We provide service to a lot of small towns. We look at our patients not as just patients, but they’re our families. They’re our neighbors. These are our communities.”
Contacted Monday by The Geary Star, Medic West director Ray Simpson declined to comment on the specifics of the Geary case but did say that his company, and the entire industry, is facing a severe workforce shortage after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is a challenge to get paramedics,” Simpson said. “If somebody comes in and says, ‘We’re going to give you paramedics around the clock’ – They may, but they’re going to do it by working people to death. They’re going to do it by paying bonuses, by paying tons of overtime. … Right now there is a huge, huge, difficult time in getting people to come in to EMS.”
The Geary 522 district owns the ambulances that service the area. Pafford will lease them from the district and re-brand them with its own logos.
McPherson invited the community to attend future 522 board meetings. The Geary board meets every second Tuesday of the month at 106 E Main St.