By Paul Liotta
Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Ambulance response time can be the difference between life and death, but Staten Island’s South Shore will have one less at the ready thanks to a local hospital’s decision.
Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) will discontinue an overnight ambulance tour that operates south of Huguenot, a spokesperson for the hospital confirmed Thursday.
A pair of anonymous tipsters first brought the issue to the attention of the Advance/SILive.com this week raising concerns about what impact the canceled tour would have on residents of the South Shore, and the motivation behind the discontinued service.
“Given that a human brain can only endure roughly five minutes without oxygen before irreversible damage begins, these additional response minutes could mean the difference between life and death. SIUH’s motivations for these drastic measures appear to be financial,” one of the tipsters wrote in an email. “As the only significant healthcare provider in the area, most 911 calls would naturally lead to one of their two hospitals on the Island. However, it seems they are failing to account for the vital purpose of emergency response — to provide timely assistance in order to save lives and maintain health, not merely to transport patients to the nearest medical facility.”
Initially, the SIUH spokesperson arranged a Thursday morning interview with Dr. Joseph Basile, the chair of the hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine, about the issue, but pivoted to an emailed response Wednesday night.
The spokesperson sent the emailed response a little after 12 p.m Thursday, but didn’t respond to specific questions about which tour hours were cut or if they plan to make any further cuts.
In that emailed statement, the hospital spokesperson described the cancelled tour as “grossly underutilized” shift that was used to supplement existing FDNY service, and that one of the department’s shifts would be modified to meet the need of the missing ambulance.
“After thorough review, a decision was made to modify one of the shifts that runs through the FDNY EMS system,” the spokesperson wrote. “We are continually exploring methods to better serve the community and to enhance Staten Islanders’ ability to access the care they need. Discussions were had with FDNY regarding this change so they can evaluate if an adjustment was needed for their deployment.”
A spokesperson for the FDNY did not confirm that by the time of publication, but City Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore) said Thursday that was his understanding.
He pointed to hospital systems around the city that have made similar decisions to cut ambulance services for financial reasons.
“It’s a consistent problem as ambulances have become less profitable for private hospitals to operate,” he said. “This problem was just more proof all of NYC should be entirely served by uniformed EMTs [from] the FDNY.”
However, among the city’s emergency response services, FDNY EMS receives the least funding, and the increased burden hasn’t been met with more dollars, according to Oren Barzilay — president of Local 2507, the union that represents FDNY EMS workers.
He said other factors, like more violent crime in recent years, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and increased auto accidents, have also added to the demand that FDNY EMS faces every day.
“Staten Island is a huge borough, as far as land size, and sometimes it can take a good 15, 20 minutes on a call to get from one side of the Island to the other,” Barzilay said. “And every time you take away one resource it’s going to impact the response time, so there’s consequences.”
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