Thumbs up to Warren General Hospital and its auxiliary for two programs to help retain EMS personnel in the county.

Each month, the auxiliary will donate a $50 gift card to the county fire services. A department will be drawn at the Council of Governments meeting every month, and the chief of that department will then select a member that is most deserving for the gift card.

Warren General Hospital has also agreed to a $1,000 gift — $500 for a basic life responder and $500 for a quick response service responder that will be drawn randomly.

Both are nice programs that will reward people volunteering for a job too few want to fill.

If the gift card or random gifts from the hospital are a deciding factor that keep a few existing EMS volunteers active then the money will have been well spent.

But, let’s not kid ourselves. Bigger action at the state level is needed to make it easier to volunteer in the EMS service or paid EMS providers will be the only option to provide the life-saving emergency response that Warren County residents desperately need.