The City of Lubbock’s emergency medical services were discussed once again on Thursday in a closed door committee meeting.
In February, the city council voted to form a committee to go over all the options the city has in terms of EMS providers. The committee has two city council representatives, a county commissioner, representatives from UMC and Covenant, as well as Grace Clinic, Lubbock Heart Hospital, and Lubbock Fire Rescue.
The discussion started earlier in February when there was the possibility of the city approving a five-year extension on their EMS contract with UMC.
The city decided to not vote on that extension yet. Thursday, the committee met for the first time.
“It was a great meeting, good dialouge, got a lot accomplished, looking forward to the next meeting,” Richard Parks, President and CEO at Covenant said.
“We had a very productive meeting today, and we had some progress I think that was made, some new ideas and a real sense of cooperation with the city, the fire department, with UMC, with Covenant health system,” David Allison, CEO of UMC Health System said.
Aliison said the committee meets in about a month.
Councilman Jeff Griffith, a committee member, said he too felt the meeting went well, but was not able to identify a timeline yet on how long the committee would take to come to findings.
“It’s too early and we’ve got a lot of great folks on this committee and I think that, I hope that we’re going to get to a good end result,” Griffith said.
