When EMS is the Real Emergency

When you call 911, you expect help to be on the way. Fast.

But in Athens, ambulance services are not operated publicly as in most Georgia counties. Instead, they remain under a tight private grip. This hinders transparency, accountability, and even life-saving medical care at a time when every second counts. 

Before 2009, Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center (PARMC) and St. Mary’s Hospital each operated its own ambulance services. To offset their losses, Clarke and Oconee counties provided public subsidies. But as financial pressures grew, the hospitals chose to contract emergency services to National EMS, and the subsidy was accordingly redirected. 

National EMS, a private for-profit company, has been criticized by both patients and former employees for putting profit ahead of patient care. According to former employees, the company would dispatch its last ambulance for non-urgent transfers, increasing delays for people facing real emergencies. In fact, Tracey LaFlam, National EMS Operations Manager, admitted that there were 12 instances between July and September 2025 where they had no EMS units ready to respond to a 911 call. This equates to once a week on average. 

Given that 1/5th of Athens is uninsured, a significant proportion of the population relies on local emergency response capabilities. Yet, the system has fallen short historically. For example, in 2018, when a gunshot victim called 911, the only unit National EMS had available to deploy was a basic life support ambulance staffed by EMTs, but no highly trained paramedics. 

In a sharp contrast, the ACC Fire Department consistently has quicker response times given the higher concentration of stations throughout the county. From October to December 2025, the fire department always had 2 emergency response units to deploy, never oversaturated. On top of that, for the highest priority calls, the fire department averaged response times 3.5 minutes faster than National EMS. For someone in cardiac arrest, those minutes can mean the difference between life and death.

Oversight to create accountability measures has also been weak. In 2013, Piedmont-Athens Regional and Saint Mary’s hospitals created an oversight committee including representatives of the hospitals and local government. However, Dee Burkett, Executive Director of Patient Services at PARMC and chair of the oversight committee, admitted that they had not comprehensively evaluated late ambulance responses in 4 years. Moreover, the members had to sign non-disclosure agreements to attend these private meetings.

In 2019, ACC Attorney Judd Drake researched the legality of these closed-door meetings, given National EMS’s receipt of taxpayer subsidies. This report concluded the meetings should comply with the Open Meetings and Open Records Act. Upon this, they abruptly cancelled all their committee meetings with no meetings between 2019 and 2021. The hospitals had cut contact with the 2 newly appointed members of the oversight committee. Essentially, a for-profit company run by private equity had no supervision in Clarke or Oconee County. This is especially concerning as private equity ownership has been associated with slower emergency response, faulty equipment, and financial collapse. Without meaningful supervision, there is little to stop those patterns from repeating here.

In 2018, an Athens-based political activism group filed an open records request to the Georgia Department of Public Health. They received raw reports and found that National’s contract guarantees an average response time of 8 minutes and 59 seconds on 90% of 911 calls (as per national standards). Between 26,235 and 31,055 calls failed to meet the outlined standards. In 2016 and 2017, they answered 90% of their calls within 18 minutes, double the national standard time. 

On June 13th, 2024, the commission proposed a revised EMS memorandum of understanding (MOU) with PARMC. This agreement dissolved the oversight committee, replacing it with quarterly reports that report raw data. While National EMS is now reporting response times, they have repeatedly failed to share the raw data, obstructing effective oversight.  

Below are solutions public safety advocates have long championed:

1. Require National EMS to establish a separate division to run 911 calls. 
2. Require National EMS to meet the same reporting standards as the ACC Fire Department.
3. Station ambulances at fire stations across the county to improve response times.
4. Invest in additional equipment so trained firefighters can provide higher levels of care before transport.
5. Push Region 10’s EMS Council to reevaluate whether the current provider is meeting community needs.

Public safety should not depend on profit margins. Athens residents deserve faster response times, full transparency, and an EMS system accountable to the people it serves.