EMS Needs Divorce

To the Editor:

At the June 28 City Council hearing on the progress of the FDNY/EMS merger over the past 11 years, the EMS Chief-in-Charge, John Peruggia, painted a rosy picture of the takeover of EMS by the FDNY. Thank God that Don Faeth and Tom Eppinger were present to provide a reality check to the Chief's company-manned testimony.

They testified, in essence, that the merger was nominal and that EMS gained virtually nothing and actually lost out in being merged with the FDNY. They also spoke out on the huge salary discrepancy between the two services.

The EMS needs to be recognized as the separate entity that it is. Nobody sees the Fire Department as anything other than firefighters, and Paramedics and EMTs must be recognized as the life-savers they are, not waterboys to the FDNY's varsity firemen.

The doldrums that the EMS has languished in for more than a decade is in large part attributable to the fact that our most-powerful people, our highest-ranking Chiefs, who should be our most vocal advocates, are appointed by the Fire Department. The EMS needs to be unshackled from this inappropriate arrangement and permitted to be an autonomous agency unfettered by any association with any other vital city service. Whether it's recognized or not, we all know the Emergency Medical Service is a stand-alone operation.

It would have made more sense in 1996 to pair EMS with the NYPD, since they respond to between 40 and 60 percent of our calls anyway and their Emergency Service Unit officers are qualified medical personnel. It would even have made more sense for the EMS to be coupled with Sanitation over the FDNY inasmuch as they are public health-associated. Hell, we both employ the caduceus in our logos.

Firemen do a difficult and dangerous job, as do EMTs and Paramedics, albeit facing different dangers. But firemen have relatively little or no overlap with the public. Firemen arrive, do their job, do it well, and head back to their houses. The EMS is all about dealing with members of the public in their time of crisis and grief. This is an added level of stress that EMS personnel are subjected to daily.

The two jobs are just that, two completely separate jobs and skill-sets. We all know the merger between fire and EMS has been an unhappy union. The time for counseling is over; it's time to have the marriage annulled.

JEFF NICHOLS