08/26/2026
EMS Should Be Essential
Just because EMS has always been expected to survive without the same support as other emergency services doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.
We’ve gotten really good at saying things like:
“EMS has always found a way.”
“Volunteers will cover it.”
“The community can’t afford more.”
“That’s just rural EMS.”
“Someone will answer the call.”
But what happens when someday, no one can?
EMS is not optional when someone is having a heart attack. It is not optional when a child cannot breathe. It is not optional when someone is critically injured on the highway. It is not optional when a family calls 911 because they have nowhere else to turn.
Yet in too many communities, especially rural communities, the system responsible for answering those calls is expected to survive on unstable funding, shrinking volunteer numbers, aging equipment, limited staffing, and local communities trying desperately to hold everything together.
We would never accept that approach for other critical public safety infrastructure. We shouldn't accept it for EMS.
EMS needs to be recognized as an essential service, and it needs meaningful state support.
Calling EMS “essential” isn't about taking away local control. It is about recognizing a basic reality:
When someone calls 911 for a medical emergency, there must be a sustainable system capable of answering.
Local communities should absolutely have a role in building and supporting their EMS systems. But the entire responsibility cannot continue to fall on small communities, local taxpayers, volunteers, and providers who are already stretched thin.
The State needs to be part of the solution.
That means looking seriously at sustainable EMS funding, rural staffing, recruitment and retention, training, equipment, ambulances, communications, medical direction, and the enormous geographic challenges faced by rural agencies.
Because an ambulance sitting in a station without enough people to staff it isn't a functioning emergency medical system. A volunteer roster doesn't guarantee an ambulance will respond. And hoping someone will always step forward is not a long-term public safety plan.
This isn't about criticizing the generations of EMS providers who built the system we have today. They accomplished incredible things with very little. But honoring what they built doesn't mean refusing to improve it. We can value volunteer EMS and recognize that volunteerism alone may no longer be enough. We can respect local responsibility and ask the State to share responsibility for protecting its citizens. We can talk about the cost of supporting EMS and talk about the cost of doing nothing.
Most importantly, we can stop treating EMS as essential only after someone needs it.
Because when the tones drop, nobody asks whether EMS is technically considered an essential service. They simply expect an ambulance to come.
And they should.
Maybe the next chapter of EMS in Idaho shouldn't be about asking our providers and communities to somehow keep doing more with less.
Maybe it should be about finally building a system designed to last.
EMS is healthcare.
EMS is public safety.
EMS is part of our emergency response infrastructure.
And it is time we support it like it is.
EMS needs state support. EMS needs sustainable funding. EMS needs to be essential.
This is a conversation Idaho needs to have because we have days when someone called 911 and there was and will not have an ambulance available to answer.
