Statistics show Dr. John Warner Hospital's decision to go to one ambulance overnight may be a good decision.

Ambulance Manager at the city owned hospital Terrence Hubbard explains when the decision to end the ambulance service through the hospital, he was charged with researching the costs associated with the ambulance. Hubbard's research was quite extensive, going to back to 2009 and researching hour by hour statistics for the ambulances.

[audio:ambulanceresearch1.mp3]A Word From Hubbard[/audio]

What Hubbard found was the total amount of calls were decreasing. He says by the end of their current fiscal year, which ends April 30 of this year, they will once again have another year of declining numbers in their call volumes.

[audio:ambulanceresearch2.mp3]A Word From Hubbard[/audio]

Hubbard then broke down his hourly research to times of the day and he says his research showed they could easily cut back to just one ambulance at night, as they are averaging just two calls per night.

[audio:ambulanceresearch3.mp3]A Word From Hubbard[/audio]

Hubbard says 23% of the call volume they receive, transportation was not need, so they did not transport anyone. He says not transporting anyone does play a large role in their cost.

The Dr. John Warner Hospital will end ambulance services December 31 of this year. The DeWitt County Board recently approved taking a county wide tax levy to referendum, which will be on the march ballot.