Esposito discusses hospital diversion and mutual aid efforts
Esposito says FDNY is working with hospitals to reduce diversion and has asked hospital partners to add 911 ambulances, with three agreeing so far. He cites Staten Island hospitals agreeing to accept mental health patients and says FDNY invoked the state mutual aid agreement and welcomes volunteer units.
As with all areas of emergency response, the more communication and coordination between partners, the better the outcome.
We've also been working with the Greater New York Hospital Association.
We've asked our existing hospital partners who participate in the 911 system to add additional units.
To date, three have agreed to provide additional assistance.
We have also invoked our New York State Mutual Aid Agreement.
And we continue to welcome units from the volunteer corps within the city to assist with 911 calls.
These are partners who are already familiar with our system and who have participated in past times of need, including during COVID.
We've been working with the hospitals to address persistent diversion issues.
One challenge that creates longer response times is when hospitals go on diversion and refuse to accept patients.
This is sometimes necessary for a variety of valid reasons.
But we also experience hospitals that frequently go on diversion for certain types of patients, which means that ambulances have longer trips to drop off patients and longer trips back to where they came from.
We continue to speak with hospitals where this practice creates persistent challenges to get them to go off diversion and become a destination for patients.
One recent success is on Staten Island, where two hospitals that had consistently remained on diversion for mental health patients.
This in turn required ambulances to drive across the island to reach a hospital that was accepting that type of patient and then drive back across the island again to get back to the area it was serving.
By these hospitals agreeing to begin accepting mental health patients, ambulances no longer need to traverse the island in order to transport patients to receive appropriate care.