A brand new metropolis Fireplace Division directive geared toward slashing the rise in 911 response occasions has provoked an enormous backlash, with sufferers and hospitals claiming it’s truly jeopardizing security as an alternative of being a lifesaver.
FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker imposed a rule March 12 requiring EMS ambulance crews to move all sufferers — whether or not their situation is life-threatening — to the closest hospital, not one the place the sufferers have a relationship with their physician or the place they like to go.
The earlier directive solely required ambulance crews to ship sufferers to the closest hospital throughout extreme or life-threatening medical emergencies.
The collection of the hospital is aided by a pc.
In uncommon situations, an attraction to a tele-FDNY physician can overturn the computer-aided resolution.
The brand new coverage is simply too inflexible and undermines affected person security and care, mentioned Dr. Bret Rudy, government vp and chief of hospital operation at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.
He mentioned that for instance, a affected person with a damaged hip was just lately despatched to the emergency division of a hospital that didn’t have an orthopedic surgeon to carry out surgical procedure. NYU Langone’s workforce ended up going to the opposite hospital to switch the affected person to Langone for surgical procedure.
“This policy does not produce good outcomes. It’s going to result in bad outcomes,” Rudy warned to The Put up.
“It’s putting more patients at risk.”
The brand new directive has led to confrontations between sufferers and ambulance crews, too.
Eli Gottlieb, 84, mentioned he was affected by kidney failure and that his physician, who was affiliated with Mt. Sinai Brooklyn, informed him to name 911 for an ambulance to take him to the power.
Gottlieb mentioned he sat in an ambulance for half-hour as he haggled with its crew, which was instructed to take him to Maimonides Midwood Group Hospital.
Gottlieb refused to go there, noting that the hospital that treats him, Mt. Sinai Brooklyn, was not a lot farther away from his house.
The ambulance crew referred to as the FDNY-teledoctor, who overruled the pc dispatch choice and allowed the ambulance crew to ship him to Mt. Sinai Brooklyn. Gottlieb mentioned the ordeal wasted valuable time.
Requested how he would describe the nearest-hospital-first coverage, Gottlieb responded, “Stupid — in a word.”
A girl in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, additionally referred to as 911 to move her grandmother, who had blood in her stool, to NYU Langone-Brooklyn Hospital, which is in Sundown Park.
The girl, who requested anonymity, mentioned her grandmother is Chinese language and that she most well-liked to ship grandma to a hospital with extra Chinese language-speaking employees.
However the paramedic and EMT within the ambulance mentioned they needed to take granny to Coney Island Hospital, which was nearer.
The household ended up refusing the medical help and drove the grandmother to Langone-Brooklyn.
The brand new ambulance coverage has “created a lot of consternation” within the hospital business, mentioned Kenneth Raske, CEO of the Higher New York Hospital Affiliation. He mentioned negotiations are ongoing to see if tweaks might be made to the directive.
However FDNY Commissioner Tucker defended the coverage throughout a Put up interview, as did the union chief representing paramedics and EMTS on 911 ambulance crews.
Tucker mentioned some hospital officers are usually not blissful that sufferers are usually not being steered to their hospitals by the FDNY 911 system.
“That’s a business dispute. I’m in the business of saving lives,” Tucker mentioned.
“I don’t steer patients. I take them for the most part to the local hospital. We’re not the Uber business or Lyft business to take people where they want to go.”
He mentioned transporting sufferers to the closest hospital in most situations is “the right thing to do” in order that ambulance crews can extra rapidly reply to the subsequent 911 name.
The typical ambulance response time to life-threatening emergencies jumped greater than 34 seconds, from 8 minutes and 14 seconds in 2024 fiscal yr to eight minutes and 48 seconds for the primary quarter of the 2025 fiscal yr working from July 1 by way of November, in line with the mayor’s administration report in January.
The FDNY is in discussions with hospital officers over potential tweaks to the coverage, however Tucker doesn’t foresee dramatic change.
“It’s working,” he mentioned. “Response times are coming down.”
A affected person who isn’t dealing with a life-threatening state of affairs can refuse medical help and take a non-public automotive service or different transport, Tucker famous.
Oren Barzilay, president of FDNY EMS Native 2507 representing FDNY EMS paramedics and EMTS, backed the brand new 911 directive, repeating lots of the factors made by Tucker.
He mentioned some sufferers wish to keep away from town’s public hospitals.
“People think we’re a cab service to take them where they want to go. We take you to the local hospital to be treated,” Barzilay mentioned.
