Increase to EMS cost

The addition of $25 thousand dollars to what Oconee County pays each year for the costs of  hospital-operated EMS ambulances apparently will survive in the new county budget that is to go into effect on July 1.  According to Scott Moulder, the county has been allocating $150 thousand dollars a year to help Oconee Memorial Hospital defray the costs of operating a countywide EMS ambulance system, under the auspices of the Greenville Health System.  There was general agreement last night at the county council meeting table that the neighborhood of $150 thousand was not too much to pay, considering that the hospital always has the option of discontinuing the service and placing the burden for it on county government.  Not everyone, however, is satisfied.  District Two’s Wayne McCall said of GHS:  “I think they are playing a shell game with us.”