New York, NY – The Fire Department has booted the city’s volunteer ambulance companies from its emergency 911 system, The Post has learned.
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The volunteer ambulances “are no longer required,” a high-ranking EMS chief told dispatchers in an e-mail last month.
About 35 community-run corps of volunteer EMTs dot the city, mostly in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, staffing a fleet of about 50 ambulances.
The volunteers respond to an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 emergency calls annually, said Ryan Gunning, head of the state volunteer ambulance association.
“If it weren’t for us, patient wait times would often be much longer. We get called in when the FDNY doesn’t have an ambulance to send. This change comes at the patient’s expense,” said Alan Wolfe, president of the Forest Hills Volunteer Corps.
The community medics, many of whom are off-duty city emergency medical technicians, carry the same state certification as city medics. Volunteer ambulances also are insured, the leaders said.
Even so, the volunteer units “will not be logged into the EMS Computer Aided Dispatch [CAD] system during routine operations,” EMS Deputy Chief Tony Napoli wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Post.
That changes a policy the FDNY put in place on Jan. 5, 2001, when it issued an order allowing volunteer ambulances to participate in the 911 system.
All the “vollie” ambulances responded on 9/11. Forest Hills medic Richard Pearlman, 19, died when the Twin Towers collapsed.
Last summer, at the height of the swine-flu panic, the FDNY asked the vollie-run units for help, Wolfe said.
FDNY spokesman Jim Long said the department and the volunteer units have collaborated at times. But he claimed the vollies are never assigned calls through the official FDNY CAD system that handles 911 emergencies.
“At one point, they were able to log into the system, but they just sat there. Nothing ever happened. They never answered a call,” Long said. “It was decided about six months ago to cut them off.”
The volunteers called Long’s claim “ludicrous,” and said the FDNY was playing semantics.
“It’s a complete lie. They call us all the time. If not through their system, they call us on the mutual-aid radio system or just call us directly,” said Gunning, who also heads the Glendale Volunteer crew.
The vollies have their supporters at City Hall.
“These volunteer ambulance groups provide a vital service, and any city action that might harm them would soon be the subject of a City Council hearing,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.
The city bills you 800 dollars per transport they need the money shame on you Bloo¤ie
Typical of Bloomburg’s arrogence. This, just like the tickets, is about money.
FDNY EMS bills for calls whether they take half an hour to respond or not.
By taking off the volunteers, it leaves them more calls to bill.
Who cares about lives? It’s money that matters!
if not for hatzalah- the city would not know what the heck to do with themselvs. They would have to add at least another 50 ambulances daily. Hatzalah has over 250,000 calls a year!
good, volunteers like hatzoloh dont need to be on the 911 system they get enough calls without them
Just wait till they need them again, they’ll come crawling back begging… These ungrateful bigshots. Volunteer ambulances are the main reason that response times are so good, if it were up to the FDNY, people would die on the scene from superficial wounds…
Follow the money trail & it will make sense.
Only the city wants the money,but the vollies are all in the name of????
They should be aware if not hatzolah they could start adding another EMT daily on duty
i cant believe how fast u all forgot what happened about three weeks ago, when a woman was dying and when two EMS workers were flagged down to help the’re answer was “we’re on a cofee break” and refused help to that woman, which ended up dying… so Ziedy…. sorry to bust your bubble but B’h we have other sources besides the EMS!!
#11 … there are rotten apples in all organizations… FDNY does a great job at what they do.
this has nothing to do with hatzolah we do not get our calls from ems. people call us directlly. ems is mad because many of the ambulance companies listen to their radios and run to the calls so they could bill. that is how they stay in business and hatzolah does around 80,000 calls a year not 250,000. We also try not to antagonize the ems members. We try to work with them and not to compete with them.
while the ems has pretty good service and response times, there is no way you can compare their service and sophistication to hatzoloh. just riding in one of their ambulances you can tell that they are not on the same level.
In any case, i dont think this impacts hatzoloh in any way since they were never on the 911 system.
I am now doing my rotations on a 911 dispatched ambulance.
Its so ugly, the way they treat any medical situation, the crew won’t start to move untill all sandwiches have been finnished.. Nor will they exit the bus untill all the paper work (pcr) has been filled out. .
They have no moral obligation treating the patients, they are just doing their job, making sure to do nothing more then required..
They will use the least equipment, since that means that they will have to restock it. Including not administering O2.
Just ride along with them for one shift, and you will understand why private Vol ambulance corps are needed.
goodbye to the east midwood ambulance scam.
it seems that most of the commenter’s don’t know that nearly all vollie squads will bill insurance the primary exception being our own Hatzoloh
I cant agree more with #18 ask any FDNY EMS (not fire) worker they are all unhappy with their job. The never use the main O2 in the bus so they dont have to restock it. They give 8LPM when the NYS protocall is 15 . Thank G-D for the volly corps or we would all be in trouble. If they could they would walk a pt in cardiac arrest. I have seen them be very nast to pt.’s. I hope the Vol Amb corps remain.
Typical beauracratic thinking. Why take something for free when you pay for it, plus benefits, health, medical, retirement. Tell me about trying to save the city money.
I know Hatzalah is great but lets not knock EMS. Hatzalah could not handle what they do. Everybody could do better and a few bad calls a year should not label every member of EMS. Their members get burned out because of the volume they handle. The Mayor should hire more EMS workers, and purchase more ambulances and then their system would improve. Why does the public tolerate a ten minute response time from EMS when we get a four minute response time from the Fire Department. It is because politcians do not give EMS enough money to operate efficiently. It is not EMS’s fault.
That’s why MDs are not in pre hospital care.
A. There is no contra indicator not to give 15 LPM even for a patient with COPD.
B. Patients with suspected shock get O2 via NRB. So 15 LPM is effective.
COPDs in the pre hospital settings, are treated like any other patient, since.withholdon oxia will do more damage than benefit.
When is the last time you peformed ACLS? Seems like you should take a refresher. .
EMVA is full of buffs, FDNY and H-Rejects that want nothing more than L & S and an off street parking permit. No one likes us so lets stop sugar coating this subject once and for all, “Let the truth be known” no one likes EMVA period.
The FDNY did the right thing by cutting the vollies from the 911 system. Vollies are private serivces and not part of the 911 system. But they should make the city pay big time when they call upon them in the future for resources. EMS is a business and if the vollies want to survive they better get that through their heads.
When we need supplies does FDNY give us any, NO. Not even after we take their patients for them.