Founded in 1975 by Eileen Coyle, Monroe Ambulance has entered its 45th year of dedicated service to the greater Rochester community. The family-owned and operated organization with headquarters in the City of Rochester, from which they provide all levels of ambulance service to Monroe, Wyoming, and Orleans Counties. Their providers, along with their clinical leadership and utilization of advanced medical technology has resulted in Monroe Ambulance becoming one of New York’s most admired and trusted pre-hospital care providers.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, alongside our brothers and sisters in the New York EMS community at the epicenter of the crisis, Monroe Ambulance supported the needs of Rochester and surrounding communities ensuring each call for service was answered. Responding to the continued trend of diminishing numbers of new EMS providers into the system (despite an increase in the need for EMS), Monroe leveraged its agility to develop and deliver virtual EMT classes in an effort to ensure our communities will be served regardless of the challenge posed with another wave of the pandemic. As the current Chair of UNYAN and Monroe Ambulance’s CEO and President, Thomas Coyle maintained his involvement with UNYAN despite the increased pressure and demand for his time preparing and responding to local effects of the crisis. He led the organization in a push for legislation to recognize and address the needs of EMS for the entire state, and the voice was heard.
United New York Ambulance Network
Albany, New York
The United New York Ambulance Network (UNYAN) is comprised of small and large commercial ambulance providers. Founded in 1996, UNYAN advocates for quality patient care and helps lead the industry toward providing reliable, cost-effective approaches to high quality medical and emergency transportation services. UNYAN members provide safe, reliable, and timely ambulance services in 22 of New York’s top 25 cities and serve millions of New Yorkers 24/7/365.
As one of the hardest and earliest hit states by the COVID-19 pandemic, UNYAN members have stepped up to support New Yorkers and help alleviate the strain on the state’s healthcare system. Our members operate in urban, suburban, and rural communities and they have gone above and beyond to help their neighbors, protect communities, and reduce the burden on hospitals through innovative treat and release practices. Our members are essential for New York’s recovery. We couldn’t be prouder of their resilience and dedication to our patients during these challenging times. To learn more about what we our members have done during the pandemic, visit us on Facebook and on Twitter @NYAmbulances.
News 4 New York looks at how people are coping with the physical, emotional and financial stresses of a pandemic that has already taken hundreds of thousands of lives.
Stefan Hofer’s ambulance company, West Traill EMS, in Mayville, North Dakota, has received only one or two calls that weren’t related to Covid-19 over the past two months. But he said the case count has ballooned by 20 to 30 percent because of the pandemic. At the same time, the company’s expenses have mounted, its revenue has cratered and its workforce is being decimated by the virus.
The company — which is private and supported by volunteers, a few employees and four trucks — covers more than 1,500 miles of North Dakota prairie and serves about 10,000 people on the far east side of the state.
Private EMS services, both in urban and rural centers across the country, collectively received $350 million in Covid-19 relief funds in April, but those companies said that money ran out within weeks. Months later, the need remains great as they face another coronavirus surge.
Their Pandemic Safety Plan Starts With a ‘Decontamination Station’
The coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of many American families. Follow this weekly feature called “Family, Interrupted” to find out how.
Quentin and Stacy Blakley opened the “decontamination station” in their home garage as the coronavirus pandemic took root in Georgia in March and have never shut it down. Mr. Blakley, 45, an Atlanta firefighter based at the city’s international airport, uses it to protect his family from a job that exposes him to strangers daily. At the end of each 24-hour shift attending to aircraft emergencies and medical calls, he returns to his South Fulton, Ga., home and removes his uniform in the garage. No exceptions. He showers away from Stacy, 45, and their four sons — ages 14, 12 and a set of 9-year-old twins — then dumps his clothing in a bag to be washed. Finally, Mr. Blakley walks into his house.
On October 6, 2020, the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) conducted a memorial service for department members who had recently died. It was a somber ceremony for the many fallen personnel. The ceremony was very inclusive and noted the passing of emergency responders, FDNY civilians and mechanics as well as a paramedic who had come to NYC on a FEMA deployment to assist during the pandemic.1 The information on the notice also provided an opportunity for a preliminary agency-level epidemiology analyses to develop a better understanding of the risks faced by FDNY personnel in 2020.
NYC Pilot Tries Mental Health Responders in Place of Police
New York City plans to test out a program where dispatchers send out emergency medical services and mental health crisis workers, instead of police officers, to mental health-related calls, making it the latest city to attempt a pivot away from policing as a cure-all.
The city’s mental health teams will work in two high-need communities starting in February. They will include health professionals and crisis workers from the fire department’s emergency medical services division. They will respond in place of the traditional police and paramedic teams, except in cases that involve a weapon or imminent danger, according to a statement from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office this week.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic created extraordinary new challenges for the emergency medical services (EMS) industry. Frequently shifting state and federal guidance and emerging information about the novel virus has required EMS agencies to be even more nimble in delivering care.
This is true for Empress EMS, a PatientCare EMS Solutions company, which serves New Rochelle, New York – the first epicenter of America’s COVID-19 pandemic. Empress first began monitoring for COVID-19 on February 15, 2020, as it recognized the New York City area’s high risk for the virus.
The head of New York City’s emergency medical services union said Wednesday that the city is preparing to lay off hundreds of its members as the budget crisis grows during the coronavirus pandemic.
Oren Barzilay, president of FDNY EMS Local 257, blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio and his administration for the expected fallout.
Rather than expose himself to a stream of infected patients in Queens, Baer opted to retire last month, ending his career at least a full year earlier than he’d planned. That disqualified him from collecting his full pension, and Baer estimates he gave up between $2,000 and $4,000 a year in retirement benefits — a decision he doesn’t regret.
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic in New York, emergency medical services Capt. AJ Briones’ teams were fielding nearly 700 calls a day, tending to numerous patients going into cardiac arrest, many others needing intubations and seeing more deaths than they ever intended to see.
“We didn’t know that would be the end of life as we know it,” Briones, 32, who works for Empress Emergency Medical Services in Yonkers, Westchester County, said. “It literally shut down the whole world.”
Now with cases down in the state, his EMS teams can sometimes catch their breath for a moment. But with cases rising rapidly around the country, Briones reflected on the virus’ devastating toll, how far New York has come and his concerns about a possible second wave in the state.
In New York, New York, from March 1 to May 31, 2020, 201 102 individuals were diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), resulting in 51 085 hospitalizations and 16 834 deaths.1 The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), the largest in the US, responds to nearly 1.5 million emergency medical calls per year in a city of more than 8.4 million people. Active paid FDNY responders include 4408 emergency medical service (EMS) responders and 11 230 firefighters. These FDNY responders are required to don personal protective equipment before patient contact per US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.2 In this cohort study, we compared medical leave of FDNY responders during the pandemic with prior years.
Prezant DJ, Zeig-Owens R, Schwartz T, et al. Medical Leave Associated With COVID-19 Among Emergency Medical System Responders and Firefighters in New York City. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(7):e2016094. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.16094
Mohawk Ambulance Service has been announced as the recipient of this year’s regional EMS Agency of the Year Award given by the Regional Emergency Medical Organization (REMO). Additionally, Edward Marchand, a member of Mohawk’s Training Center staff, was named as the recipient of this year’s Educator of Excellence award and Dr. Heidi Cordi, Mohawk’s Medical Director, received the Physician of Excellence Award.
With all states reopened to some degree, cases and hospitalizations are rising. Arizona, California and Texas all set records for new cases on Tuesday. The question now is whether hospitals will be able to handle it, and what will happen if they can’t. “Many of them still have a lot of available capacity, but who knows how long that’s going to last,” said Eric Toner, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “They should be getting themselves ready now.”
Nobody wants to know about what I do. People might pay us lip service and say we’re heroes, but our stories aren’t the kind anyone actually wants to hear about. Kids in this country grow up with toy firetrucks, or maybe playing cops and robbers, but who dreams of becoming a paramedic? That’s ambulances. That’s death and vulnerability — the scary stuff. We’re taught in this culture to shun illness like it’s something shameful. We’d rather pretend everything’s fine. We look the other way.
Hugo Sosa arrived here a hero, triumphant over the worst that covid-19 can inflict on the human body. Nearly 100 of his fellow first responders whooped and cheered as Sosa was wheeled out of a hospital last month. They chanted his name. He flashed them a thumbs-up from his gurney.
Twelve days later, frail and drawn in his room at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, Sosa puzzled over a pile of coins his speech pathologist had set before him.
“Forty-five cents from a dollar, what do you get back?” Kristen Lucke asked.
“Fifty-five cents,” Sosa responded quickly.
“Good, show me 55 cents.”
That was more difficult. Sosa would have to hold the number in his head while he searched for the right coins. Today that was too much to ask. Perhaps tomorrow.
Thank you to the dozens of AAA member ambulance services who answered the call to serve in New York City’s time of need. This Facebook video from fellow member FDNY shows the final deployed medics heading home.
Thank you to the many member organizations who answered the call to serve in the New York and New Jersey #COVID19 response. Your service will not be forgotten! #SupportEMS #AlwaysOpen #NotJustaRide
