News Channel 7 Investigates: Is it really an emergency?

Greenville County could soon change the way its EMS system handles non-emergency calls. The possible changes are in response to a News Channel 7 investigation that revealed ambulances often act more like glorified taxi cabs, than emergency responders.



It's a problem that impacts health care across the country and here in the Upstate. The problem is a combination of people who make abusive requests for an ambulance and an EMS system that never says no.

Here are some samples of abuse requests:

Operator: “EMS, fire. What’s the address of your emergency?”

Caller: “My wife is hmm, hmm, is constipated...she's hasn't used the bathroom in about a month.”

Another caller asks for ambulance to help a women go to the bathroom.

Caller: “She needs to go to the bathroom. She can't get up off of her chair

Operator: “So, she just needs help getting up?”

Caller: “Right.”

Operator: “’She's not hurt or anything like that?”

Caller: “Oh, no.”

Other callers ask for an ambulance for sore throats, the flu, and a woman who cut her hand, that stopped bleeding the day before.

Operator: “Right now, is it bleeding?”

Caller: “No.”

Why do ambulances respond to such non-emergency calls? Greenville County's EMS policy says it can never say no.

In May, News Channel 7 first showed you how non-emergency calls can impact real emergencies when seconds count. For example, In April county response records show time to help a pregnancy and a seizure were nearly double the norm, because crews were busy with a non-emergency call.

From 2006 and 2007, nearly 20 percent of the county's responses were non-emergencies.



“We're concerned about the issue,” says county council member Joe Dill. He and fellow councilman Fred Payne say it’s time to re-evaluate the county's EMS system.

Both say issues with the county EMS’ system are not local, but a national problem, “I think we are addressing it here. I think Greenville County is very progressive in trying to solve a national issue.”

To find out what's working, we went all the way to Richmond, Virginia to evaluate the busiest EMS system per capita in the nation. To reduce its non-emergency responses, nurses started taking non-emergency calls in 2006.

“We want to save the ambulances for the true emergencies and if they're taking a call for a tooth ache, we may run short of those resources,” says Lee Ann Baker, Chief Administrative Officer for Richmond Ambulance Authority.



Nurses help answer callers’ medical questions, schedule appointments at doctor's offices, or find more appropriate resources for transportation. Ambulances are sent if still wanted, but the program is reducing non-emergency responses, “The two years that it's been live, there have been over 750 ambulances that we did not have to send, that's 750 people that go more appropriate resources in the community,” said Baker.

By email, Greenville County's EMS director Zaragoza says it’s looking into working with hospitals to add nurses in Greenville County too, “It's definitely that we've already looked into, and really have initial discussions with some of the hospitals.”

Zaragoza says the abusive calls make up a small percentage of the non-emergency calls.

Council members promise taxpayers will see progress. Payne also wants the county to implement a stronger public education campaign about proper EMS usage, and suggests asking church groups to help.

Spartanburg and Anderson county EMS share the same policy, but both agencies claim it’s difficult to tell how many non-emergency calls it responds to per year because they run lights and sirens on all medical calls.

To hear audio of some of the 911 calls click play on the video player below.

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For part one of this series, click here