My seven year old son goes to a rural school. The response time for the ambulance to get to his school is 15-20 minutes, and the township trustees won’t agree to call a closer paramedic unit. What do you think? Is 20 minutes too long? Who could I contact to try and make changes?

You may wish to have personnel at the school trained in how to use a Glucagon Emergency Kit, how to spot severely low blood sugars, and be familiar with general care of diabetes rather than relying on EMS which may take 20 minutes to attend to your son. Twenty minutes seems too long to me.

MSB
Additional comments from David S. Holtzman, Esq.:

I will assume the closer “paramedic service” is a propriety ambulance service that charges a fee for its services. Unless there is a contract in place with the municipality for this service to respond to 911 calls as a first responder, then the school probably does not have to call them directly. If you want the school district to call the propriety service I would suggest that you establish an account with that service to guarantee payment for their services. Once the guarantee for payment of service has been established you should inform the school, in writing, that the propriety service is your preferred provider of EMS services for your child. If you are not willing to guarantee payment in advance with the proprietary service, then it is unlikely that the school district has any obligation to call them as the first responder.

DSH