Some people say politics has no place in church or at the dinner table. You could add another place to that list - politics and providing emergency services in life or death situations should never mix.

The Lawrence County Commissioners are in the process of trying to bid out the county's emergency medical services in an effort to possibly save money. We applaud those efforts because every alternative must be examined.

The commissioners must look at ways to save money whether that would be to continue to provide a contract to the current provider, Southeast Ohio Emergency Medical Services, or going with one of the more than six others that expressed interest.

A pre-bid conference was Tuesday and bids will be opened Monday unless the commissioners extend that deadline. Granting a little more time would not be a bad decision if it helped the companies provide the best, most accurate information.

However, we hope the county looks to the past and remembers a valuable lesson: Politics and operating fiscally sound medical services do not always work well together.

The former River Valley Health Systems' vacant shell of a building sits empty as a permanent reminder of that fact.

Regardless of who is ultimately given the contract, we hope the commissioners keep politics and county government out of the issue. It shouldn't be about who are friends with whom or how many votes a decision could create. The decision must look at service against cost. Period.

The county needs to find a qualified company to operated the service and allow them to do so, independently of politics.

We should expect equal or better service compared to the current provider but the county should not tell these businesses how to manage their operations.

And the county certainly should not try to become too involved in the actual operations of service. If we're going to move away from SEOEMS, the only logical way is with a separate company, not some cobbled together county-operated system.

If you need an operation at the hospital, you want a professional to do it. The same goes with getting to the hospital.

We must leave that to the professionals, not the politicians.