Aeromed, pictured here at an air show, has agreed to keep their helicopter here until the commission finds a permanent replacement for emergency medical flights.
News-press.com file photo
The company performing emergency medical flights in Lee County, Aeromed, has agreed to keep their helicopter here until the commission finds a permanent replacement.
Aeromed officials had planned to pull out of Lee County Jan. 1, re-positioning their helicopter to the north in Charlotte County.
But in a statement released Friday afternoon, county officials announced that Aeromed will keep a helicopter stationed at Page Field while the commission finds a permanent replacement.
County officials called in Aeromed after the county-run program, Medstar, was shutdown in August.
A Clerk of Court audit found that mismanagement in the county’s public safety department was to blame for the program’s downfall.
Four private companies are vying to carrying Lee County’s critically injured, according to the statement. The Commission could contract with one as early as January.
Privatizing the public safety service is the only, since the commission decided earlier this year to give up a flight certificate the county needed to reinstate Medstar.
That move was designed to try and avoid fines the Federal Aviation Administration could levy for rule violations that county officials racked up before they shutdown the service.
For close to a year, county officials billed patients and their insurers for helicopter trips without meeting safety standards that were needed to do so.
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