‘We’re not going anywhere’: Only EMS provider in Merced County fights to stay

MERCED COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Big changes may be headed to Merced County’s emergency response. 

The Board of Supervisors is set to vote on the county’s ambulance services Tuesday morning. 

Riggs Ambulance Service has been the sole EMS provider for more than 70 years. Michael Swenson is the operations manager for the company and says the decision to potentially replace Riggs comes after officials put in a Request For Proposal (RFP) for ambulance services. 

“The RFP came out in May of this year,” he explained. “On Aug. 18 is when we kind of found out that they were going to go with another company. And so, from that point, we’ve just kind of been putting together our protests and trying to appeal everything.”

Swenson says Riggs was told they were out of compliance and in breach of their contract for response times during the pandemic.

“We were given exemptions in 2020 and 2021 for compliance, where we did not have to meet those. So, to say that we didn’t hit compliance when, for a year, we were free of compliance and you still clumped in those months and those quarters to justify, ‘Hey, they didn’t hit compliance, this is why we’re doing an RFP.’ I don’t feel that’s fair,” he said. 

He admits they were short-staffed at the time, but adds Riggs tried everything to pull paramedics back in. 

“We had had, you know, post-COVID kind of some staffing issues, as a lot of people did, especially in Merced County. It was a struggling area. We just didn’t have the paramedics,” he explained. “We even had $20,000 sign-on bonuses to try to bring in paramedics from outside areas. And we got two or three, but we didn’t even have applicants.”

Swenson says they now have more than enough passionate workers signing up to help others.

“We knew the answer would be our own homegrown EMTs turning into paramedics, and luckily, they did. They wanted to do that. We sent over 20 students to school. They all now work for us,” he said. “We feel we fixed all the problems, which is what they kind of went out to do with this RFP and to maybe bring in a new contractor.”

The number of emergency responders with valley roots is what Swenson believes Merced County will risk losing by going with another provider. 

“The incoming company, they may keep some of our EMTs, some paramedics. They might move our dispatch center out of Merced County,” he said. “The billing center could be gone or will be gone. But they usually outsource that, even sometimes out of the country. So those jobs, you know, they don’t come back. And we have some people over at our billing office that have been at Riggs for over 20 years. Somebody just retired last year. That was a 30-year employee. So, it’s like keeping that local versus if you’re outsourcing it or if you’re dispatch centers.”

Because of their extensive history within the county, Swenson says going with another provider who may be unfamiliar with the area could result in delays and other negative impacts on the community.

“We’re one of the oldest in the nation. So having that change of service can always have some effect on the county and the residents,” he noted. “We didn’t walk away during COVID. We didn’t walk away when we had to get travel paramedics, when we had to do $20,000 signing bonuses. We’re here in Merced through whatever. We’re not going to go anywhere.”

So far, they’ve gathered letters and more than 1,700 signatures of support. 

“We like to say, you know, people over profits, we are all about patient care and taking care of this community,” Swenson said.