The new Bourbon County Emergency Medical Services Station at Woodland Hills is nearly complete.

“A new sign will be coming,” EMS Director Robert Leisure, “It will be seen from the street out front, Woodland Hills.”

“Mercy Hospital donated the building,” Leisure said. “The city runs the day-to-day operations. The trucks and facility are owned by the county.”

Inside the station is housed four EMS vehicles.

“Two duty and two transfer trucks,” Leisure said. “Two ambulances are at the Fort Scott Fire Department (on National Avenue).”

There is a dayroom to “relax and get off our feet in between calls,” Paramedic Mike Krieger said.

There is one large room that the main office, day room and kitchen are located in.

There are four separate sleeping rooms for shift employees.

“The EMS schedule varies on which days are worked,” Leisure said.  “But the goal is two 24 hour’s  (shifts) per week or 48 hours per week.”

EMS Director Robert Leisure indicated the new ambulance service is doing well.

For an earlier feature on the service, click below:

Bourbon County Ambulance Service Starts Today, April 1

“We’ve seen a month coming in…We started billing to Bourbon County in February…We are making money,” he said. The goal is to break even for the year.

“My operational budget will be in August,” Leisure said. “It was guesstimated using input from Mercy.”

Robert Leisure was chosen as the new Bourbon County Emergency Services Director, with an official starting date of April 29.

“Robert has been a Paramedic/RN with the service for the past 23 years.  Christi Keating had decided that she was no longer going to serve in the capacity of EMS Director earlier in the year,” Dave Bruner said.

Bruner is a representative of the City of Fort Scott on a task force that was given the job of transitioning the services from Mercy Hospital. Keating was a representative of Mercy Hospital and there were also representatives from Bourbon County on the task force that was formed following the announcement of the closure of the hospital in October 2018.

“We opened the position up and Robert expressed interest as well as three other candidates,” Bruner said. “Robert was chosen to fill the EMS director position.”

“I was already a Mercy employee and transitioned over to county with the rest of the staff,” Leisure said. “I was asked and encouraged to step up and fill a void left by the late Danny Hall.”

He has several decades experience in emergency services.

“I’ve been a Kansas paramedic for 23 years or since 1996,” he said. “Most of my EMS career was spent in this general area and mostly with Mercy.”

Leisure is a registered nurse with 16 years of experience with Mercy Hospital.

“Nearly all (nursing experiences)have come in the ER setting with the exception of a brief stint of flight nursing with Eagle Med,” he said.

Leisure believes he has a good mix of employees.

“I’m currently fully staffed with 10 full time and 15 part-time employees” Leisure said. “It’s a good mix of paramedic and EMT’s. Some with vast experience and some just getting started.”

Leisure is learning the director job with help and has been challenged and motivated by this new position in a good way, he said.

“My duties are very fluid to me right now as I’m learning the position which is a new position, with no predecessor to really follow,” he said. “I’m being helped greatly by both Christie Keating and Dave Bruner in this transition. Christie has an extensive background in management mostly inter-hospital. And Dave is very knowledgeable about the inner workings of governmental processes.”

His duties include: “ordering and maintaining medical supplies and medications, ensuring billing of the runs we do is done accurately and on time, ensuring compliance with all state policies and procedures for ambulance operations, configuring a schedule of work for staff that see’s all shifts are covered with two crews on a 24/7 basis,” he said.

In addition, “duties include quality assurance where run reports are reviewed to assure a certain level of care is maintained, hiring and maintaining a full staff, facilitating regular maintenance of the six ambulances, meeting with the medical director and reporting to both county and city commissions since the service is run by the city and owned by the county,” he said.

The partnership between the City of Fort Scott and the Bourbon County administration has worked well.

” I have nothing but great things to say about both commissions as they’ve worked together exceptionally,” Leisure said.

To view earlier stories on the Bourbon County Ambulance:

Bourbon County Ambulance Service Starts Today, April 1

Ambulance Service For Bourbon County