Durbin, Duckworth Announce Nearly $519,000 In Funding For Rural EMS Agencies | U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois

07.28.22

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) in the present day introduced $518,916 in funding for a number of rural hearth and emergency medical providers (EMS) businesses in Illinois. The funding, which was created by way of Durbin’s Supporting and Bettering Rural EMS Wants (SIREN) Act, will go towards supporting EMS businesses in coaching and recruiting employees, conducting certification programs, and buying tools.

“Throughout Illinois, rural EMS businesses are first on the scene to answer group emergencies, the opioid disaster, and the COVID-19 pandemic. However for EMTs to correctly reply to those emergencies, we should guarantee they’re outfitted with the required provides, coaching, and regular funding to help their operations,” mentioned Durbin. “I labored exhausting to move the SIREN Act to fulfill the wants of EMS businesses as they care for his or her communities. I hope to see in the present day’s grant recipients put this federal funding to good use.”

“EMS businesses that serve rural components of Illinois are sometimes lifelines in instances of emergencies and these first responders have been on the frontlines through the COVID-19 pandemic,” mentioned Duckworth. “I’m proud to assist announce these assets to assist make sure that the businesses administering these essential providers have the tools, employees and assets they should proceed serving their communities.” 

Below this announcement, these businesses will obtain the next grant quantities:

• Jersey Neighborhood Hospital District: $193,453
• Amboy Ambulance & Hearth Safety District: $125,463
• Gibson Space Hospital & Well being Companies: $200,000

Durbin’s bipartisan SIREN Act was signed into regulation in 2018 as a part of the Farm Invoice. Durbin secured a $2 million enhance within the Fiscal 12 months 2022 Omnibus Appropriations Invoice, for a complete of $7.5 million, for SIREN Act grants to rural hearth and EMS businesses nationwide.

A decline in major care and hospital service availability, nice distances between well being care services, and low insurance coverage reimbursement for transport and emergency therapy have all strained rural EMS businesses.  On the identical time, EMS businesses in the present day are tasked with ever-greater obligations—addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, getting ready for pure and artifical disasters and bioterror threats, supporting the persistent and emergency care wants of an growing older inhabitants, and responding on the entrance strains of the opioid epidemic.  These first responders are sometimes the one well being care suppliers of their space and face issue in personnel recruitment and retention, and securing costly tools. 

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