After 29 years of serving the southwest, the Swift Current and District Ambulance Service is set to be sold next year.

The service is being sold to Hutch Ambulance of Assiniboia effective April 1 of next year.

Nelson Pompu, one of the owners of the Swift Current and District Ambulance Service along with Bob Dyke, said that the timing was right to sell.

"In the orderly progression of things as you age, you need to make those kinds of plans ahead of time," he said. "I just turned 60 last June, and my partner Bob will be turning 60 in the next year and a half, so we decided that this was the time to start entertaining the process of moving forward and turning the service over to somebody else."

Pompu said that they will still continue to work for the service and help out with the transition period.

"Both Bob and I have decided that we will continue to work with the service for a time," he said. "We will be doing a consultation with the Hutches, and they will be coming down, and they'll be holding meetings. We want this to be as seamless and as smoothly of a transition as possible so that our staff is at ease as well as the public."

He said that the reason they sold the service to Hutch Ambulance is that they share many of the same features.

"They have the same kind of values and belief system that Bob and I have," he said. "We just felt that it was a very good mesh of ideals in that way. Both with the type of service you are offering to the people, how you treat your employees, and how you interact with other agencies."

He added that to see the service grow from the basement of a hospital to what it is today has been a great journey.