By David Fleet
Editor
Goodrich-After locating an ambulance in Goodrich on Feb. 1, 2016 officials at Mobile Medical Response or MMR report that due a low volume of calls a unit will no longer be stationed in the village for area calls.
However, they will continue to respond to local calls via mobile units.
Mobile Medical Response is a non-profit, established by St. Mary’s of Michigan and Covenant Health Care in 1994 in an effort to provide emergency medical service in Saginaw County. MMR has since expanded its services to include 15 counties in mid and northern Michigan. Today 100 emergency response vehicles and a staff of almost 600 are employed by MMR.

Due to low call volume, Goodrich and Atlas Township are not covered by an EMS, rather, they depend on nearby private ambulance services from Grand Blanc, Davison and, until January 2015, Groveland Township in case of emergency. As a result, response times in emergency situations have been a concern for township officials for many years.
Steve Henson, Genesee County operations manager for MMR, said the operation, located at 8389 S. State Road next door to Funky Dogs Pizza and Pasta will stay active in the area.
“We have 24 hour service without a base location,” said Henson. “The competition from Davison and Grand Blanc has been taking a lot of the calls. That unit will be dynamic rather than static in one location. We were the last EMS provider to have a base operation in Genesee County . However, while the unit might not be there in Goodrich stationed 24 per day it is strategically located in the community and able to respond.”
Currently the calls have dropped to less than two per day, with a need of about three required, said Henson.
“We have not abandoned the Goodrich or Atlas Township,” he said. “I would not anticipate the service to change at all. Our units are now in an area that historically has needs based on data from 9-1-1.”
Henson said that residents should see no change in response time.
A volunteer ambulance base previously ran in Atlas Township from the Goodrich Lions Club hall on M-15. Township resident Emery Bennett served as board chairman of the Goodrich Volunteer Ambulance for 19 years.
The GVA had as many as 67 volunteers on call 24 hours per day, seven days per week.The ambulance company provided the community with ambulance service until 1997.