KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said Friday the Kansas City area is one of our five regions in Missouri that will receive support from ambulance strike teams.
Those ambulances provide long-haul patient transfers which can help hospitals reduce COVID-19 caseloads when they are strained.
According to Parson, 30 ambulances and more than 60 first responders will begin arriving in five regions of Missouri on Friday.
“The ambulance strike teams we positioned in Springfield have been extremely effective in helping save lives and ease the pressure on local hospitals,” Parson said in a release. “These 30 new ambulance teams triple our transport capacity and expand it to the entire state, as needed. Our health care professionals are performing heroically to save lives as the Delta variant dramatically increases hospital admissions. We will continue to support our health care heroes across the state.”
The ambulance teams come in response to a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
There will be 20 advanced life-support ambulances, five basic life-support ambulances and five specialty care ambulances.
Teams will be in the state through Sept. 5.
The five regions receiving ambulance teams include Kansas City, northeast Missouri, southwest Missouri, south-central Missouri and northwest Missouri. Teams can move as needed.
Ambulance teams from Arkansas that were assisting in southwest Missouri will head home and be replaced. Those 10 ambulances have completed 223 patient transports during their time in the state, some as long as nine hours or more round trip.
