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Hidalgo County officials have decided where the second of three ambulances purchased with federal COVID-19 relief dollars will go.
Leaders with the county and the city of Mission approved of the interlocal agreement during a pair of meetings last week.
With the approval, the city will soon be home to a brand new ambulance that will be used to respond to emergency medical calls throughout portions of rural county areas just outside Mission.
“This is an amazing thing that we’re doing for our citizens,” Hidalgo County Precinct 3 Commissioner Everardo “Ever” Villarreal said during a Dec. 19 county meeting.
It’s Villarreal’s precinct which will be served by the ambulance placement.
“It’s gonna impact the city of Mission and the rural area. … If we save one like, it’s well worth it, and I know that it’s needed,” he said.
The commissioner thanked the city and Mission Fire Chief Adrian Garcia for agreeing to collaborate on the agreement.
“A lot of people don’t know, but Precinct 3 is the only precinct that does not have an emergency district, so having creative ideas like this, and working together, hopefully, we can save the taxpayers money and not have to create an emergency district,” Villarreal said.
Mission will lease the ambulance from the county at a rate of $10 per month. The city will be responsible for staffing and supplying the unit, Chief Garcia explained to the Mission City Council last Monday.
Dr. Ivan Melendez — who serves as both the medical director for Mission EMS service and as the county’s health authority — called the collaboration a “blessing” that will allow the city to evolve in an ever-changing first responder landscape.
“We’re going forward, and we’re either gonna go forward the right way, or we’re gonna go backwards. There’s no staying static,” Melendez said.
“This is the time. I’m really happy to see vibrant and really energetic people at the leadership role that’s gonna move us to where we need to go,” he added a moment later.
The interlocal agreement marks the second time in as many months that county leaders have agreed to place an ambulance to service residents in rural western Hidalgo County.
Last month, the county approved a similar agreement with the city of Palmview, which hosts its own city-owned ambulance service.
Earlier this year, Hidalgo County approved the purchase of three new ambulances using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA.
The more than $887,000 went to purchase and equip the ambulances, which have remained in storage since their purchase.
The county’s decision to buy the ambulances came several months after Pharr EMS pulled out of commitments to service the county’s unincorporated areas in Precincts 1 and 3.
Those regions had previously been served at no charge by the now-defunct Hidalgo County EMS, a private, for-profit ambulance service provider that declared bankruptcy in 2019.
In 2021, the city of Pharr purchased Hidalgo County EMS’s assets, including its service contracts with the county. But city leaders there soon found it untenable to continue providing the rural ambulance service for free, especially as costs skyrocketed.
That left county leaders scrambling to find ways to fill in the gaps.
Ultimately, Hidalgo County inked one-year agreements that would have private EMS company, Skyline EMS, service Precinct 3, as well as Precinct 1’s Delta region.
On the same day that the Hidalgo County Commissioners’ Court approved of the interlocal agreement with Palmview, commissioners also approved a one-year extension to Skyline’s contracts.
