EAST WINDSOR: Locals face Advanced Life Support emergency service change

RESCUE SQUAD PRESIDENT: Capital Health System paramedics choose profit over public safetyThis article was first pulished 5:11 p.m. June 6, 2013

By Amy Batista, Special Writer
   EAST WINDSOR — Capital Health System moved its paramedic response unit from the township to West Windsor. Critics say this change could potential cause a delay in response time at night to residents who call 911. 
   Locals still have Basic Life Support available 24-hours a day. The Advance Life Support still exists but those calls will no longer trigger a response from East Windsor, instead the Capital Health truck will be responding to the area overnight from its new base in West Windsor.
      Jeff Shanker, president of East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 1, said the organization was notified in April by Capital Health System that its Advanced Life Support (ALS) unit — known as 794 — was in jeopardy.
   Effective as of May 1, the community of East Windsor and subsequently Hightstown now has the presence of its Capital Health System paramedic truck from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays.
   ”We, the squad, have significant concerns not just for the heart attack but also for the diabetic emergency, an individual with congestive heart failure, for an asthmatic, for true life-threatening emergencies” Mr. Shanker said. “We feel that response times are going to be extremely delayed which has potential to create catastrophic events for the public.”
   East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 1 hosted a meeting on April 16 at its building to discuss how local rescue companies could keep the ALS unit in local communities around the clock.
   ”We have called everyone together this evening to discuss the situation with 794, which is the paramedic unit housed here within our squad,” Mr. Shanker said at the meeting.
   ”We hope decisions will be made which are for the betterment of all of our communities, citizens and passers through, recognizing these services are an essential part of the ever evolving emergency services network, which includes all police, fire and Emergency Medical Services,” Mr. Shanker told The Herald April 22.
   ”It’s unfortunate that Capital Health is looking at sustainability over public safety,” Mr. Shanker said.
   According to Jayne O’Connor, Capital Health spokeswoman, an analysis was done in the past few months which indicated that calls for the paramedics services were on the decline.
   The 794 paramedic truck had covered primarily the greater East Windsor area, Ms. O’Connor said April 22.
   ”We did an analysis of the services of all of our trucks and the one in East Windsor was responding to very few calls,” said Ms. O’Connor. “Less than one per evening shift.”
   The trucks that will now handle the calls during the evening would be paramedic trucks from the Princeton Junction Fire Co. on Clarksville Road in West Windsor and the Mercerville Fire Department in Hamilton, according to Ms. O’Connor.
   ”We felt that that level of call volume could be handled efficiently and adequately by the other trucks in the area,” Ms. O’Connor said.
   According to Ms. O’Connor, prior to a truck being in East Windsor, the area was covered by a truck stationed out of Princeton Borough.
   ”Based on the call volume being handled by the other trucks, we believe we can handle that,” Ms. O’Connor said, adding, “it’s always open to changes.”
   However Mr. Shanker said calls cannot be “predicted.” Calls come at anytime of the day and night ranging from fires, motor vehicle accidents, to all types of emergencies.
   ”If you look at the last week in East Windsor, there was a murder that happened at 10 o’clock at night,” Mr. Shanker said. “There was a three-alarm fire at 10:30 in the morning, this morning. So how do we know when any of this is going to happen?”
   Part of this large volume of calls was coming from Monroe Township, Ms. O’Connor stated.
   Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital has also completed a similar analysis.
   ”As a result, some resources were re-allocated (from Monroe) to meet the demand for coverage during this time (daytime),” said Peter Haigney, director of public relations at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
   ”However, several units remain available to provide appropriate coverage overnight for Monroe,” Mr. Haigney said April 24. “Our overall goal is to minimize response times and maximize coverage with our existing units.”
   ”There is coverage throughout the evening from existing units,” Mr. Haigney said, however he would not specific on specific times that the area is covered by paramedic units.
   ”If, at some point, the call volume increases and there is a need for more trucks, then we will certainly revisit it,” Ms. O’Connor said.
   East Windsor has one of the longest transport times to area hospitals, according to Mr. Shanker.
   ”They are clearly doubling, if not tripling, the response times that are currently in place from the other units,” he said.
   ”While the paramedics in Mercer County are employed by Capital Health, ultimately they serve the entire county and surrounding areas,” Mr. Shanker stated. “Increasing response times to the areas — which are furthest from hospitals — just doesn’t appear to be prudent to the sick and injured.”
   A handful of local squads and fire companies were in attendance to support Mr. Shanker.
   Mr. Shanker and Scott Prykanowski, chief of the East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 1, met Director James Boozan, director of Emergency Management Services, meet in November to discuss rumors that Captial Health was considering reducing the hours of the ALS unit.
   ”Interestingly enough, on April 1, not an April fool’s joke, we were notified that effective May 1, Life 794 was going to become a 12-hour truck,” Mr. Shanker said.
   According to Mr. Shanker, on April 17 a letter was sent to the president and chief executive officer of Capital Health, Al Maghazehe, and copied to Samuel Plumeri Jr., who is chairman of the Board of Directors. A letter was also sent to the East Windsor mayor, requesting a response concerning the increased response times heading to East Windsor.
   Mr. Shanker asked local squads and fire departments in the room for their support by signing a sheet of paper to be presented to Mr. Maghazehe.
   ”I’m sure I can speak on behalf of Sta. 42 (East Windsor Volunteer Fire Company No. 1) and we will support you on this,” said Tony Katawick, assistant chief.
   ”If you need anything from us, just let the Chief (Kevin Brink) know,” Mr. Katawick added.
   ”You have Hightstown’s support,” said Scott Jenkins, deputy chief of Hightstown Engine Co. No. 1.
   Mr. Shanker assured the local squad and fire departments in attendance that there was a plan being proposed to help resolve the concerns.
   Other emergency agencies which showed support included East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 2, Cranbury First Aid Squad, Cranbury EMS, Hightstown First Aid Squad, Plainsboro First Aid Squad, Twin “W” (West Windsor), East Windsor Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 and East Windsor Volunteer Fire Company No. 2.
   ”We are not going into this blind,” Mr. Shanker said. “We suggested we have a sit down conversation with Al Maghazehe and the MICU Director (Jim Boozan),” in regards to a plan to keep the ALS operational locally for East Windsor residents.
   East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov, too, weighed in on the issue.
   ”We certainly are concerned about this sudden decision by Capital Health to change the ALS service and potential impacts on critical and timely health care response for our community,” the mayor told The Herald earlier this spring.
   After speaking with Mr. Shaker, Mayor Mironov said she immediately brought her concerns to Capital Health. Council member Marc Lippman, Chief James Monahan, of the East Windsor Police Department, and Township Manager Jim Brady joined the mayor at that meeting.
   ”As this is a county-wide system, I also have reached out to the county freeholders about this matter — to share our concerns — and request their involvement and assistance,” Mayor Mironov said.
   If was unclear as of deadline if the Board of Chosen Freeholders had reached out to Capital Health prior to East Windsor losing its 24-hour ambulance service May 1.
   Mr. Shanker reviewed some common addresses that paramedics respond to from the squad building, 47 One Mile Road, which he obtained from Google.
   He said it is about three minutes to 20 Lanning Boulevard, nine minutes to Meadow Lakes, and eight minutes to Twin Rivers Drive.
   The times are even longer for a truck coming from the Mercerville Fire Department in Hamilton with a response time of 17 minutes to 20 Lanning Boulevard and a 21 minutes response time to Meadow Lakes and Twin Rivers.
   ”These far exceed the recommendations that were set forth by this Tri-data corporation,” Mr. Shanker added.
   He said the Tri-data Corporation was prepared by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Office of Emergency Medical and the report was done in 2007 which reviewed response times by ALS units.
   ”They recommended the mean time, meaning that middle time for an ALS unit to respond to a scene be seven minutes and 34 seconds,” Mr. Shanker said.
   According to Mr. Shanker, the residents “have some serious implications” as well as any people passing by who may need “advanced medical life support.”
   For the East Windsor Rescue Squad members, the paramedics have also played a vital role in shaping many of their careers and being role models.
   ”Our squad members who have been able to sit and talk with the medics and learn and educated on what they saw on the last call, to be able to have a critique and to be able to learn why people do what they do.”
   Nancy Distelcamp attended the squad meeting — and Mr. Shanker said she was “one of the original volunteer medics” of the area — who started as an emergency management technician, and went on to become a nurse after first serving as a local paramedic.
   ”I came in 1983 and was a volunteer medic for quite a number of years (when I became a paramedic),” said Ms. Distelcamp, of Hightstown.
   Even her children followed in her footsteps. Her oldest daughter, Sara Sweeney, went on to become a Capital Health paramedic; her other daughter, Tressa Distelcamp, 17, is the cadet captain and an EMT on East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 2 while her son, Thomas Distelcamp, 15, of Hightstown is a junior cadet on the rescue squad and the East Windsor Volunteer Fire Company No. 2 auxiliary.
   She is a registered nurse and the Trauma Department Injury Prevention Coordinator at Capital Health in addition to being an exempt member of the East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 1 and an associate member of East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 2 where she assists on its Education and Training Committee and Good and Welfare Committee.
   As Ms. Distelcamp looked back on her career, the “comradery that was over here at the rescue squad” during the 80s is what stood out.
   ”We had a lot of many different personalities,” Ms. Distelcamp said. “We all got along. We were all volunteers. We all got the job done. We all liked the support we got from our home base at Helene Fuld.”
   ”Our top priority is the care of our patients and the people in the community,” Ms. O’Connor said. “We are confident that we can cover the area with the number of trucks we have.”
   Capital Health responded to the East Windsor Township Rescue Squad District 1 on April 24, stating it was still moving ahead with its plans reduce its paramedic coverage of East Windsor despite the efforts of Mr. Shanker and the local emergency management community.