A federal grant of $500,000 will allow the V.I. Health Department to bolster its emergency medical services fleet by paying for new ambulances and repairing vehicles not currently in use, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs announced the grant award Friday. The EMS division is responsible for managing year-round ambulance service on all three islands. On St. Croix, EMS has six ambulances, but uses two for backup. On St. Thomas, the fleet includes eight ambulances, but only two are used regularly. Money from the grant will allow for a new one to be added into the rotation.
Of the three ambulances on St. John, only one is used regularly, said Department of Health spokeswoman Eunice Bedminster. EMS plans to purchase another new one and the remaining two will continue to be used as backup.
“This is almost the same feeling I had when we finally dedicated our new ambulance boat" in April on St. John, said Dr. Selwyn Mahon, the department’s EMS director. "It reinvigorates us, because like the old ambulance boat, our ambulances were always in disrepair, and to have such a significant infusion into EMS, it confirms that we are important to the administration For those of us who work in EMS, it inspires us to continue to provide our best efforts, because we know the work that we are doing is going to be supported."
Mahon wrote an initial proposal Aug. 5 to the Department of the Interior for funding after being contacted by local field representative, Basil Ottley, and was soon asked to submit a formal grant proposal.
“I am very sensitive to the growing challenges that public health institutions in the Virgin Islands and the other insular areas are facing with trying to maintain standards and delivering excellent medical service in an era of shrinking public dollars and exploding medical cost,” Anthony Babauta, the Department of Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas, said in a news release.
Babauta said after consulting with Gov. John de Jongh Jr. and V.I. Delegate to Congress Donna Christensen, he was "satisfied that the investment we are making in the VIEMS with our limited dollars is the right one to make at this time."
