NATCHEZ — One local ambulance company is seeking a change in a county ordinance that could impact how ambulances are staffed.

American Medical Response’s operations supervisor Tim Houghton wants policy to allow an EMT, instead of a paramedic, to respond to a non-emergency response call.

A change in the county’s ordinance could ultimately save valuable resources for AMR, Houghton said. He appeared before the county’s E-911 Board Thursday to make the request.

Currently an ordinance mandates that ambulances respond to emergency and non-emergency calls at an advanced life support level — and that means using a paramedic.

But Houghton said sending a highly trained paramedic on a non-emergency call is not necessary.

“It’s like sending three fire trucks to a one-truck fire,” he said. “And we want to make a change.”

Houghton said approximately 60 percent of the calls handled by AMR are not emergency calls but transport calls.

Houghton said most transport calls are for bedridden patients who need transportation to a physician.

“We’re having to use 100 percent of our paramedics even though we don’t need them 60 percent of the time,” he said.

And while AMR is still following the ordinance, there is some question about whether that ordinance is even the most current one.

Houghton said shortly after Hurricane Katrina the ordinance was amended by the Adams County Board of Supervisors so that a paramedic was only needed on emergency calls.

Houghton said he has no idea if the amendment has been changed back to its original wording.

Adams County Supervisor S.E. “Spanky” Felter is on the E-911 board and said he was unsure if the ordinance had been changed since Katrina.

Jim Graves, a supervisor at Miss-Lou Ambulance, said he was also unaware of a change to the ordinance since Katrina.

But regardless of the ordinance, Graves said his company does not use paramedics on non-emergency calls and was unaware of an ordinance contrary to that.

While a definitive ordinance change would have to come form the board of supervisors, many of those at Thursday’s meeting did lend their support to Houghton’s plan.

Adams County Sheriff Ronny Brown said he liked the idea.

“I think (the supervisors) should act on it,” he said.

And Felter said while he still had several questions about the specifics of such a change, he too supported the proposal.

“I think it will work,” he said.