City Urged to Quit County Emergency Network : Moorpark: Two City Council members criticize slow response times. They ask their colleagues to create a local ambulance service.

Two Moorpark City Council members said Monday that they will call for the city to take action that could enable it to withdraw from Ventura County’s emergency medical services network and start its own ambulance service.

Because of slow response times allowed by the county, council members Eloise Brown and Clint Harper said they will urge the council on Wednesday to place a special tax on the November ballot that would finance a city ambulance service.

The county’s Emergency Medical Services Agency, which contracts with private ambulance operators, has done little to provide prompt service for emergency calls in Moorpark, Brown and Harper said.

The county requires its contractor, Pruner Ambulance Co. of Thousand Oaks, to arrive in an average of 15 minutes in Moorpark, which is too late in some medical emergencies, the council members said.

Moorpark was a rural, unincorporated area a decade ago, when the county decided on the average 15-minute response time. The theory was that it would take that much time for an ambulance to travel to a medical emergency in Moorpark from the nearest station in Simi Valley or Thousand Oaks, county officials said.

Now, even though Moorpark has become an incorporated city of about 27,000 people, ambulances must still travel from the same out-of-town locations since it still has no ambulance station.

“There are cases of cardiac arrest where you wait 10 minutes, and the patient’s dead,” Harper said.

Ambulance service recently improved in Moorpark with the addition of a new ambulance station just outside the city limits, said Barbara Brodfuehrer, administrator of the county’s 10-year-old network of emergency services.

But city officials say they want paramedics stationed full time in downtown Moorpark, which would reduce response times and provide better medical attention for patients with life-threatening injuries.

They also contend that the crew members staffing the new station on Olsen Road are emergency medical technicians, not paramedics, and would be unprepared for certain medical emergencies.

Meanwhile, the county’s emergency medical care committee, which advises the County Board of Supervisors, on Wednesday is scheduled to consider a request from Moorpark officials that the ambulance service under contract to the county cut its average response time to 10 minutes. This would require a station in downtown Moorpark, city officials said.

If the committee authorizes a new station, it would have to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. Moorpark officials consider it unlikely that the county will authorize such a facility before a November ballot initiative.

An ambulance station in downtown Moorpark is not out of the question, Brodfuehrer said. She noted that Camarillo was successful in its bid for an ambulance station within its city limits.

Ventura County cities handed over control of emergency medical services to the county in 1980, but Moorpark was left out of the decision because it did not incorporate until 1983, Brodfuehrer said.

Even though no other city in the county has its own ambulance service, there is nothing that would bar Moorpark from starting one, said City Atty. Cheryl Kane.

The council has until July 25 to approve ballot status for the special tax.