The ambulance services in Peru, Oglesby and Spring Valley are now qualified to transfer critically ill patients between hospitals.

As of Dec. 3, the Peru Volunteer Ambulance Service, Oglesby Ambulance Service and 10/33 Ambulance Service in Spring Valley have been upgraded to the Tier 2 critical care level of service by the Illinois Department of Public Health. This means paramedics who have received critical care training who work for these services can maintain lifesaving interventions begun on patients at hospitals while the patients are being taken from one hospital to another.

“These specially trained critical care paramedics can administer and monitor medications and perform potentially lifesaving procedures in the ambulance,” said Bobbi Ruban, Illinois Valley EMS coordinator.