Committee Formed to Evaluate Starke County’s Ambulance Service

A Starke County Commissioner, Kathy Norem, who is the former CEO of Starke Memorial Hospital, now known as IU Health Starke Hospital, is in today with an update on a committee’s early efforts to evaluate the possibility of upgrading the county’s ambulance service to include paramedic service, also known as Advanced Life Service.

“We agreed to form a committee that will be comprised of people from the hospital, fire department, people from the county, as well as EMS, to take a look at what we need to do to get paramedic service up and running. Hopefully, that could be as soon as the first of the year. In addition to that, we are going to look into the possibility a request for proposal from private companies to see what they would be willing to do for us in the short term.”

Currently, Starke County is providing only Basic Life Support manned ambulances. It was earlier reported that Starke County is one of only two counties in the state that does not offer Advanced Life Service to its citizens. Currently the county loses approximately $200,000 annually on its BLS service.