To the editor:, Since March 28, when the township committee voted to contract with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) for ambulance services and announced there would be a two-month transition from Hillsborough Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) to RWJUH, there has been very little information in the press about the opposition to the vote or the progress of the transition., The township has used the weekly township newsletter to show a video clip from the March 28 meeting of Committeeman Frank DelCore, who said he has “the unenviable task of being the Emergency Services liaison lead for this year.” These remarks were made before the vote was taken to eliminate the HEMS/Hillsborough Rescue Squad and contract with RWJUH, and before a roomful of people had a chance to go the microphone, giving three hours of personal and professional testimony as to why Hillsborough should keep HEMS. So why is the clip entitled “Hillsborough Officials Explain EMS Decision?” They presumably shouldn’t have decided yet…but obviously they had!, In the video, DelCore explains that “sustainable” means “financially viable,” but says nothing as to how or why HEMS is not financially viable, only what the township recurring costs and donations are, which are quite reasonable on a per-family basis. He goes on to explain that it was for sustainability that they sought out the Fitch report in the first place and issued an RFP for Basic Life Support “which is what we have today…plus rescue.” It is clear the RWJ response to the RFP did not include rescue, but then DelCore goes on to say that “RWJ services are equal or greater than what we have today.” Wrong!, Further, he says rescue will be picked up by the fire companies, who are “already providing some of that today.” Really? Well, they aren’t providing today any rescue that HEMS is providing today, and that’s a lot. And they are not going to do it for free! Do residents understand that our fire budget is separate and additional to the municipal budget and that that all costs passed on to the fire company for rescue equipment and training are still going to have to be paid by taxpayers? Did anyone notice that the fire budget went up $800,000 this year without new rescue costs? We actually have a public vote on our fire budget on a Saturday in February, when a few hundred people vote. So I guess that the “savings” to the municipal budget will land in the fire budget as a “cost.” And if the rescue costs add another $600,000-$800,000 to the fire budget, this township committee won’t care because they only care about reducing the municipal portion of our taxes. As taxpayers, we care about all taxation, and we certainly care about our people being safe. This is a huge and diverse township, with highways, rural roads, mountains, farmland, woodland, rivers and streams. We are talking about extrication from car accidents, water rescues, farm machinery accidents, lost hikers, horseback riding accidents, flooding, snow … are you getting the idea yet? Is the township committee?, If DelCore really cared about the safety of residents, he would not call his liaison task “unenviable.” Where is the due diligence by the township committee regarding all the ramifications of making this HEMS-ending decision? Have they asked RWJ what their typical Basic Life Support (BLS) bill will cost the patient, whether Advanced Life Support (ALS) costs will be added to these bills, and how these bill rates are handled by Medicare and various insurance companies? What will they charge people without insurance? How about asking what their collection processes will look like? Who will provide mutual aid to an organization that has swallowed up business in our surrounding towns? Have they seen any real RWJUH performance actuals from other client towns? And what about that conflict of interest?, The township committee has gone for the big goose egg, the $0 quote from RWJUH. They went for it a long time ago, tax-paying residents and ambulance/rescue victims notwithstanding. They have sold out HEMS and sold out our residents. It’s time to recognize their at-best superficial approach to this, at worst severely conflicted behavior. It’s time to force them to rescind this decision now and then vote them out in November., Meryl Bisberg, Hillsborough
