Tulare County Approves Plan To Join Regional Emergency Services Agency

The Tulare County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a plan to join the regional Emergency Medical Services agency, which currently includes Fresno, Kings and Madera counties, to improve training of its ambulance workers, the Fresno Bee reports. Before Tulare County can join, Fresno County must approve the plan. The cost of joining the agency will be paid with a $600,000 federal grant, which will go mostly toward training nearly 100 level 2 emergency medical technicians to become paramedics. Tulare is the only county statewide that does not employ paramedics, who receive 1,050 hours of training, compared with 316 hours of training for EMTs. Paramedics can also perform seven more proceduresand administer nine more drugs than EMTs. While Tulare County could have independently upgraded to paramedics, its small staff size would have slowed the training process, which is expected to take two years, according to Ron Probasco, director of health and human services for the county(Clough, Fresno Bee, 2/25).