By Stan Donaldson and Amber Hunt
Detroit Free Press (Michigan)
Copyright 2006 Detroit Free Press
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
About 250 technicians, paramedics and dispatchers in Pontiac and Lincoln Park are looking for new jobs now that a medical ambulance service has announced it will leave metro Detroit at the end of the year.
American Medical Response, in metro Detroit since the 1980s, will close its Pontiac and Lincoln Park offices Dec. 31, said AMR Vice President Jonathan Greene.
“It’s a tough economy in Michigan and it has been difficult for us to be profitable in this part of the state,” Greene said Wednesday. “My No. 1 concern is to try to get as many of our current employees jobs so they can feed their families.”
AMR contracted to provide emergency services for the Auburn Hills Fire Department and previously worked in Southfield and Birmingham. Greene said the company, which operates in 36 states, would keep its facility in Grand Rapids and transfer some staffers to other states.
Pontiac City Council President Art McClellan said the announcement is disappointing.
“It would be nice if they stayed, but we can’t cry over them leaving because we have to move on,” he said Wednesday.
Last week, city officials learned they would lose more than $1 million in income-tax revenue after General Motors said it would move 3,600 employees to its Warren facility. The city also received a lowered bond rating that week.
AMR said the number of emergency calls it has received — often requesting private transportation for nursing home residents to hospitals — dropped from more than 1,000 a week several years ago to about 700 a week this year.
Greene attributed the decrease to increased competition and to fire departments doing their own transports.
Heartland of Allen Park, which has beds for 160 seniors, uses AMR, but an employee there said its residents will simply return to using its former service. The 47 residents at Belle Fountain Nursing Home and Rehab Center in Riverview also use AMR — along with two other services, said Jenny Johnson, a licensed practical nurse. Auburn Hills City Manager Mike Culpepper said the city approved a 3-year contract Monday with Star EMS to handle emergencies there.
But while clients apparently won’t be deeply affected, employees will — and right after the holidays.
Chris Freytag, 36, of White Lake worked as a dispatcher with AMR for 16 years until Monday. But he found work at Star EMS hours later.
Still, he said, “There are some who don’t know what they will do.”