Life support gets an upgrade in the gateway to the UP

Sept. 1, 2020

Michigan’s Cheboygan Life Support Systems purchases new cardiac monitors

When their cardiac monitor/defibrillators became outdated, Cheboygan Life Support Systems was faced with an expensive proposition. The units being replaced are more than decade old, and were becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.

They’re also very well-used. The organization, which operates an ambulance service in northern Michigan, currently has 19 employees and serves a population of more than 5,000 people, covering an area of 555 square miles that includes the City of St. Ignace, and the townships of Moran, Brevort, St. Ignace, Hendricks, and Trout Lake.

“Last year, our volume was just shy of 1,300 calls. A lot of our trips are taking patients to our smaller community hospital for stabilization and then transferring them to a bigger hospital,” says Mark Wilk, area manager for Cheboygan Life Support Systems.

“A lot of the patients being transferred are having heart issues or being given medications that we have to monitor their heart on, so this new equipment is so important,” he adds.

The organization needed to replace three cardiac monitors, with a price tag of nearly $29,000 for each new unit. At Enbridge, safety is the very foundation of our business—and we recently gave a Safe Community grant of $28,840 to Cheboygan Life Support Systems to cover the cost of one of those new monitors.

“We’re extremely fortunate that Enbridge is very community-minded and funded our request for one of the three units,” says Wilk. ““The grant will help provide new equipment and the latest technology to patients in the communities we serve. And it decreases the burden on the townships and the city to have to pay for that new equipment.”

Read the full story on the @enbridge blog channel.