STATEWIDE — Does an ambulance need to show up if you dial 9-1-1? An AARP Wyoming webinar, slated for 1 p.m. on Jan. 22, will seek to answer that question and look at what the state can do to shore up its emergency medical services (EMS).

The webinar is free to join and you don’t need to be over age 50 or an AARP Wyoming member to take part. 

Wyoming does not consider emergency medical services an essential service, which means no one is required to fund ambulance services. This has, in part, led to 16 Wyoming ambulance services having either closed doors or consolidated in the last 10 years. 

At 1 p.m. on Jan. 22, AARP Wyoming will be joined by Kemmerer Fire Chief and Sen. Fred Baldwin, Fremont County Commissioner Larry Allen and Jennifer Davis, the health-care policy adviser to Gov. Mark Gordon. This group will lay out why Wyomingites are seeing ambulance services struggle in the state and what can be done about it.

“When someone picks up the phone during an emergency, there is an expectation that there is someone on the other end who can help,” said AARP Wyoming State Director Sam Shumway. “We think this conversation about EMS and how we pay for it is as important as any that will be had inside the Capitol in 2024.”

For more information about the webinar, contact Tom Lacock at tlacock@aarp.org or 307-432-5802.

Register for the webinar online by clicking here.