Medic One Ambulance is now serving five additional Berrien County communities. Hagar Township Supervisor Izzy DiMaggio tells us Hagar Township, Watervliet Township, Coloma Township, and the cities of Watervliet and Coloma all got together to talk about finding a new provider.
“We met for about a year, a year and a half, because of very poor service, very poor response times that we were getting from Pride Care,” DiMaggio said. “Then it ended in discussions with Medic One to see if they would provide service to our five communities.”
DiMaggio says the five communities all negotiated with Medic One to take over for Pride Care and worked out a five-year contract. Additionally, Hagar Township has approved a contract with Great Lakes Rescue to provide medical treatment to those in an emergency in addition to what Medic One will provide.
“If [Great Lakes Rescue] is there before Medic One, they will start to stabilize and treat the patient until Medic One will arrive.”
DiMaggio says under the new arrangement with Medic One, the service will eventually have two ambulances in the area 24 hours a day, greatly improving response times in all five communities. He says the goal is to protect residents, something he believes the new contracts will make possible.
