After years of operation, Pickford’s ambulance service is shutting down. They say it’s because they can’t find licensed personnel.
Pickford EMS is a paid on-call agency providing limited advanced support and is one of the last in the state. Michigan law requires them to staff one ambulance 24-seven year round and Pickford is not able to do that.
Pickford started providing an EMS service in 1962, and has been serving the community for 60 years.
Jim Miller, Pickford Fire Chief says that “over the years we’ve been having a very tough time staffing. We can’t just let people, whoever responds, responds and take the call that that’s how people end up waiting a long period of time for an ambulance when no one shows up for that call.”
The Pickford community will still have EMS coverage through Kinross.
Even though Pickford and Kinross are about 15 miles apart, they say people in Pickford should not be concerned about access to prompt emergency medical care.