American Medical Response will close its Garden Grove office
By Courtney Perkes
The Orange County Register (California)
Copyright 2007 The Orange County Register (California)
All Rights Reserved
A Colorado-based ambulance company will lay off 120 Orange County paramedics, nurses and dispatchers effective April 1, a result of losing key contracts in Southern California.
Employees at American Medical Response learned last week that they will lose their jobs. The company’s ambulances will no longer provide non-emergency transports in Los Angeles and Orange counties, spokesman Jason Sorrick said Friday.
American Medical Response will continue to respond to 911 calls in Los Angeles. It does not provide emergency transport in Orange County and will no longer transport patients for Kaiser Permanente.
The layoffs come after the company lost contracts with Los Angeles County last year. About 417 employees there will lose their jobs.
“In all likelihood, many of these employees are going to be picked up in other openings in the company,” Sorrick said. “In L.A., you have about 28 different ambulance companies. There’s a huge volume of other providers that will be able to pick up some of this volume after April 1.”
The company operates locally out of Garden Grove and Cerritos, and the offices will be closed, Sorrick said. He said employees will receive severance packages and assistance finding other jobs.
American Medical Response is the nation’s largest private ambulance provider, employing more than 17,000 paramedics, emergency medical technicians and support staff. Started in 1992, it acquired regional companies that had been providing service in Southern California since 1928.