Pafford CEO Jamie Pafford-Gresham lobbied the Police and Fire Committee for an exclusive franchise contract with the city of Blytheville, Monday night.
After about a 40-minute discussion, Councilman R.L. Jones motioned to send the request to the City Council. However, it died for a lack of a second.
The last time Pafford-Gresham presented to the board, she tried unsuccessfully to prevent the city from giving the now defunct Mississippi County EMS the right of first call back in 2008, when both companies were starting their services here.
Four years later, Pafford bought out the locally-owned firm and has since been the only ambulance provider in Blytheville.
Pafford has exclusive contracts with the county and the area nursing homes, as well as the hospital system and city of Osceola.
Monday was the latest of several attempts by the firm to encourage the city of Blytheville to make a similar move.
Pafford-Gresham argued that an exclusive contract would provide security for both Pafford and the city.
She said Pafford will soon have to invest in new ambulances, and she contends that the company has established itself as a quality emergency medical service provider.
The Hope, Ark. resident said the contract would make the company accountable, and she offered to address the board quarterly, if council members wished.
"Yes, I'm doing the job and I've been doing it for quite a long time," Pafford-Gresham said. "But it's time for new trucks. I have a building on Division Street, and we house all of our trucks out there. We work real well with the Rescue Squad and the air service as well. We want to be a help and not a hindrance. And I don't have problems reporting to people what calls we make or what's going on in our sector of the public safety net that you have for the city of Blytheville. You have a very large city and a good city, but yet nothing protects you. I'm here asking for protection, but at the same time it's protection for you as a board saying that we do have a quality EMS system, and they do have to answer to us."
Councilman Stan Parks, who chairs the committee, asked how an exclusive contract would improve Pafford's service to citizens of Blytheville.
"It's time for me to purchase new equipment," she responded. "It's also time for me to continue to be accountable to someone and for me to continue to give back. Pafford is very involved in all of our other neighborhoods that we do. And I have to be honest. I've been very hesitant to jump all in to the city of Blytheville because I felt like, one I'm not really welcome in a sense, just some of the rub I get back. Why don't they want us as a sole provider? Why don't we have a contract with them? Why are we viewed as the outsiders when 30 percent of our workforce is from here, and there is not a whole lot of workforce in the field of EMS to begin with? I'm prepared to make an investment, not only in this community, but into the kids education and the school system."
She said the company has offers safety programs at the elementary school.
"I want to know that I'm welcome here, and that someone is not trying to sneak someone in on the back side ," Pafford-Gresham said. "If you're not happy, I'd like to know when I'm doing something wrong."
Parks questioned why would someone "come in for the crumbs" when Pafford has contracted with the hospital and nursing homes.
He pointed out about 30 percent of their business is transfers from places like nursing homes.
Pafford-Gresham noted Medicad and Medicare doesn't pay what it used to for transfers, dropping from $375 per run a few years ago to $180 today.
"What everybody used to call cherry picking ambulance calls," she said. "Everybody wanted the transfers. It's kind of changed over the last 10 years. That's about how much money that call generates, it's under $200 for the nursing home transfer back because it's a basic call. It doesn't require all the ambulance equipment and things. Medicare sees it differently. So, it takes those little calls that you make on a daily basis to pay for the ones that don't have the coverage during the week and on the weekends or are no pays."
Parks noted some of what Pafford is offering in the contract is already required of it by state law.
Meanwhile, Councilman Kevin Snow questioned the impact of an exclusive contract on the Emergency Squad, if it ever had to cease operations for a time.
Snow noted, under the contract, the volunteer Emergency Squad would not be able to re-establish an ambulance service.
He also pointed out if the fire department wished to open an ambulance service, as the fire union has proposed as a source of revenue, it could not, if there is an exclusive contract.
Pafford-Gresham argued that the city would lose money, if it had an ambulance service.
"That is a can of worms that is a very expensive proposition for the city," she said.
Snow reminded Pafford-Gresham that the company fought for alternative calls when Mississippi County EMS got the right of first call.
"I'm the only one standing here eight years later," she responded. "I was in business, and I was already established here just as they were. We were both in business, so you were looking to put one of the two of us out of business. I had just as much of a right to that as he had. My argument was that you should allow both of us. We're both here; we both have an investment here."
She added that both companies struggled for the four years they competed against one another.
"Competition is good in a lot of things, but competition in the ambulance business is not good, and it's something that needs to be highly regulated," Pafford-Gresham said.
Snow had other issues as well, including Pafford's call center being in Hope and some negative feedback he's gotten regarding the company.
"The only reports that have been told to me personally were bad reports," Snow said. "My only personal experience was at the Blytheville football game. A kid had a neck injury, and it took 20 minutes for an ambulance to get there. They went by three times before they pulled in."
Pafford-Gresham said the company has four ambulances in Blytheville and two in Osceola, with the ability to bring in more when needed.
She pointed out that it tries to keep one in Blytheville at all times.
"There's nothing making me do that," she said.
When the committee did not send the exclusive contract to the full City Council, Pafford-Gresham asked that it consider a sole provider agreement, something she said would send a strong message to other ambulance services, especially the fly-by-night companies.
However, that request did not make it out of committee either on Monday night.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com