The most recent entry into the ambulance wars comes from the Ashland-based Medical Transportation Service.

MTS wants to do routine medical transportation in Greenup County such as taking cancer patients to and from the hospital for treatment.

But the Paramedic Emergency Medical Service Inc., which now serves Greenup County, opposes the MTS expansion, Operations Manager Mark Ratliff said.

He said PEASI has already contacted its attorney about opposing the MTS application for a certificate of need pending before the Kentucky Cabinet for Health Services.

MTS must prove to the cabinet that a need exists for more non-emergency ambulance service.

MTS claims that PEASI does not adequately serve Greenup County because it has to delay or cancel its routine runs if an emergency comes up.

``I want to make it very clear that we are very comfortable with emergency services in Greenup County," MTS Marketing Director Rita Burgess said.

Nevertheless, MTS sees a ``great need" for routine ambulance runs, Burgess said.

MTS receives calls for service from Greenup County quite often, Burgess said, but doesn't keep a record of them because it isn't licensed to work in Greenup County.

MTS handles emergency calls in Ohio and West Virginia, but not in Boyd County, Burgess said, because the Boyd County Emergency Medical Service handles those.

The company wants to maintain good relations with PEASI if it receives approval to move into Greenup County, she said.

Juanita LeMaster, of Greenup, wrote a letter of support for the MTS expansion.

She said that in 1992, St. Joseph's Hospital in Lexington called PEASI to take her son-in-law home to Greenup, but PEASI could not do so until more than 13 hours later.

``You can imagine how frustrating this was to our family," LeMaster wrote. ``Please do not allow community politics to keep Greenup County residents from getting another ambulance service to serve the community."

Ratliff said he has not seen waits anywhere near that long in the two years he has worked for PEASI.

PEASI and the Portsmouth Ambulance Service have 32 ambulances between them, Ratliff said, enough to cover the county.

The privately owned Portsmouth Ambulance service provides advanced and basic life support services to Greenup and Boyd counties in Kentucky and Scioto, Pike, Jackson, Lawrence counties in Ohio.

PEASI has four ambulances dedicated to routine transportation, he said.

Any patients MTS takes would cut into PEASI's runs, Ratliff said, which would cut down on revenue.

Although PEASI is a non-profit corporation, if it loses enough runs it will obviously have to lay off workers, Ratliff said.

PEASI has had financial difficulties recently, according to state records, suffering a net loss of $34,200 in 1998 and $12,882 in 1999.

Ratliff said those figures were inaccurate, that the service operated in the black during those years. He could not immediately say how much the service had earned.

According to its certificate of need application, MTS expects to make 1,200 non-emergency runs in Greenup County in its first year.

Those runs would earn after-tax profit of $10,951 in 2000 and $12,794 in 2001 for the for-profit corporation owned by Charles and Barbara Williams of Ashland.

MTS would finance the $121,700 cost of the Greenup County expansion with its own funds.