The volunteer J-K Ambulance service serves a 4,000 square mile response area home to roughly 1,000 people. (Matt Gush/Getty Images)
In a rare move, Idaho health officials granted a rural north central Idaho volunteer ambulance service a waiver to a 24-hour response requirement in Idaho law.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare board on Thursday unanimously approved the waiver for Kendrick and Juliaetta’s J-K Ambulance service for seven months.
Amid recent wildfires and staffing shortages in the service of a handful of volunteers, J-K Ambulance has “fallen into a situation” of being unable to meet the requirement, Idaho Bureau of Emergency Medical Services & Preparedness Chief Wayne Denny told the state health board.
Denny said he sought the waiver at the request of J-K Ambulance. In his written request for the waiver, Denny told the board that staffing was so stretched thin that enforcing the legal, round-the-clock ambulance response requirement “would likely lead to the abandonment of the service.”