Construction is beginning on a new Emergency Medical Services (EMS) station that will serve the growing northeast Wichita area.
The EMS crew covering this part of Sedgwick County has been working out of a Wichita fire station at K-96 and Webb Road since EMS Post 9 relocated to South Webb Road in 2014.
EMS Director Scott Hadley says demand for EMS services is increasing in this area so the county needed to build a stand-alone EMS station.
"What we believe we’ll need operating in the future, the current facility just wouldn’t accommodate all of that. So we needed to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to continue to provide those services and grow and expand services as it gets busier," Hadley says.
The new station will be located at 3575 N. Webb Road near 34th Street and is expected to open in January.
"We will now have the availability in that facility to increase staffing and/or add additional crews if needed because it will be a double-bay facility so it will be able to accommodate two ambulances eventually operating out of there," Hadley says.
Sedgwick County EMS responds to an average of 175 requests for service per day, and more than 62,000 responses per year. Hadley says call demand in Sedgwick County is increasing about 3 to 4 percent each year. Population growth and new businesses such as medical offices, clinics, skilled nursing facilities and stand-alone emergency rooms are driving the call volume.
"We just want to get the infrastructure in place to be prepared not only for today’s service, but I’m looking ahead at the future 10 to 15 years down the road," he says.
Hadley says the county budgeted about $1.4 million for the facility but it will likely be completed for about $900,000.
Sedgwick County leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site Monday morning.
Three other EMS projects being considered for the county’s Capital Improvement Program: a new EMS station in west Wichita, replacing/relocating EMS Post 1 on West Central and a new garage at the EMS Administration on Stillwell.
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