Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara announced that legislation he authored to establish a New York State Rural Ambulance Services Task Force has passed both houses of the state legislature (A.1561-C/S.3503-C).

Ambulance services continue to face distinct challenges that the recent public health crisis has only made worse. An alarming number of these lifesaving services have been forced to close their doors in recent years. In addition to the financial strain that’s affects their ability to stay open many are also facing a shortage of EMT’s and paramedics. State support for these organizations has become critical. 

In recent years, two emergency medical corps based in Fulton County, near Santabarbara's district went out of business because of financial struggles and 26 state-wide, further limiting rural upstate access to these services. The task force will review and report on the number of ambulance services available in rural areas and assess the need for these services, examine and evaluate things like reimbursement structures, barriers and challenges that have led to this shortage to determine how rural ambulance services are functioning across the state and make recommendations to the legislature on how improve their operations.

“The reality is, many ambulance services here in upstate New York have been operating short staffed for years, and those challenges have only increased during the pandemic. As emergency medical services in rural communities buckle under financial strain and difficult circumstances, our families are the ones that pay the price,” said Santabarbara. “As Chair of the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources, I’ve long fought to help ensure our rural areas have equal access to high-quality health care, and establishing this task force is a critical step towards identifying long-term solutions and setting clear goals to stabilize this rural health care need,” Santabarbara added. “When an ambulance is called, every second counts. We have seen too many ambulance services close their doors, and we can’t risk seeing more do the same, not when lives are on the line. The work of this task force will help much-needed solutions to the health care inequities faced by these rural communities.”

“I represent communities that don’t have a local hospital – communities where residents have to travel more than an hour away to receive emergency care. This is a major challenge for our rural areas and our EMS providers are on the front lines, bridging the gaps in rural health access and connecting people with the care they need when they need it. But with extremely limited resources, including budget and staffing shortfalls, many of our rural EMS providers have been forced to close their doors, leaving our communities without timely access to life-saving emergency care,” said Senator Michelle Hinchey, the sponsor of the bill in the Senate. “The NYS Rural Ambulance Services Task Force is our chance to get a comprehensive view of what is happening and an actionable set of recommendations to strengthen our EMS system. I’m proud that we’ve secured unanimous passage of this bill in both houses. We now need the Governor to sign this important legislation so that we can keep our EMS services where they’re needed the most – in our communities.”