Forney City Councilman James Traylor is asking Care-Flite, which currently provides emergency response and ambulance services to Kaufman County, to meet with city leaders to address mounting concerns about its slow response times to medical crises in Forney.
“Protecting our residents is one of the cornerstone responsibilities of our City Council,” said Traylor. “For the past two years, city leaders and first responders repeatedly voiced concern about CareFlite’s response times, which are much longer than in other communities and, quite frankly, are putting the lives and safety of our families at risk.”
“I am making an official request for CareFlite to meet in the coming weeks and explain what they are doing, if anything, to improve their unacceptable response times,” added Traylor.
Traylor pointed to a recent internal report by CareFlite, which showed that the emergency response provider struggles to offer quick medical and life-saving care for distressed Forney residents. The report was provided to former Forney Fire Chief Derek Briggs just before his resignation.
“We know of numerous recent incidents where Care-Flite had no available response vehicles in Kaufman County. And when they did have emergency vehicles available, all too often their response times were so slow that Forney fire officials canceled CareFlite and found quicker ways to transport those in distress to medical care facilities,” added Traylor.
Over the past year, multiple requests to CareFlite for emergency medical response services were delayed or canceled due to extremely slow response or a lack of emergency response vehicles in the county.
“Forney is one of the fastest- growing cities in Texas. We must have a reliable emergency service provider ready to assist and ensure the safety and well-being of our residents during every medical crisis. This should not occur just part of the time, which CareFlite believes is acceptable, but every time for every family,” Traylor added.
CareFlite’s contract with Kaufman County was established in 2015. The Kaufman County Commissioners Court renewed it last November despite growing concerns from Forney city leaders. Last month, a WFAA Channel 8 News investigative report raised doubts about CareFlite’s slow emergency response times.
“We had hoped CareFlite would have done the right thing and developed a comprehensive plan to improve their dangerously slow response times in our community,” said Traylor. “But here we are, more than a month after the airing of the troubling WFAA investigative report into their poor performance, and they have offered absolutely zero solutions for a problem that appears to be worsening.”
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