From the Central Valley Business Times: San Joaquin County has ordered the city of Stockton to strip its fire engines of advanced life support equipment and has forbidden the department’s 120 paramedics from giving a dying person anything more than basic fist aid.

Instead, city residents will have to wait for a private-ambulance service that has a contract with the county to show up. The county also has ordered the city to remove anything that the public might see that would indicate the fire department provides ALS. And if a city paramedic just happens to use an advanced technique to save a life, the county is threatening to strip the paramedic of their state license.

The city of Stockton has requested ambulance response times from San Joaquin County Emergency Medical Services, but county representatives have refused to provide ambulance response time data, the city says.

Stockton is the 13^th-largest city in California. Of those, only two do not provide advanced life support.