The Española Hospital folks say we have another ambulance coming back into rotation. That wasn’t so bad, was it? All it took was replacing the Hospital director and encouraging the emergency services director to move along.
When director Derrick Yu ordered the third ambulance to come out of service he said there would be no disruptions in service. Anyone with any knowledge of Rio Arriba County knew service would be severely affected. Yu’s reasoning for terminating an ambulance and why he wouldn’t acknowledge the diminished service remains with Yu.
We have a large drug overdose problem, many car accidents and a section of our population has a propensity toward violence. Rio Arriba is about as big as Vermont. That keeps ambulance crews busy. But Yu pulled the third ambulance, leaving the County unprotected when one of the remaining ambulances had to answer a call and the other was transporting someone to Santa Fe or Albuquerque.
Immediately SUN staffer Bryant Furlow started seeing multiple calls answered late, not being answered or being answered late by another service, usually from Pojoaque or Santa Fe. Between March 9 and May 10, Hospital paramedics were delayed in responding or unable to respond to at least 35 emergency calls, a Hospital pending call log showed. Yu thumbed his nose at paramedics, laying off a few and discontinuing overtime for the remainder. They were only too helpful at providing information to the SUN regarding lost service.
Then the Hospital fired Emergency Services Director Bill Mauldin. That was when the paramedics became the bosses and then that information dried up.
The County paid the Hospital $6.26 million this fiscal year from a County mil levy fund, including $347,560 for the Hospital’s ambulance service, according to a County document. However, a memo of agreement between the County and the Hospital only requires the Hospital to maintain two ambulances in the County.
However, the Hospital is privately owned by Presbyterian. The two-ambulance requirement is vague and could be argued either way.
Regardless, there is a clear and steady record of poor ambulance performance up until the time records were made secret. Two ambulances just doesn’t cut it.
When Brenda Romero took over for Yu, she started tackling the problem. We’re just not sure what the problem is. Public Regulation Commission spokesman Paul Carbajal said the Commission is working with the Hospital to regain the third ambulance soon.
“Our investigation is still ongoing because of the management changes at the Hospital,” Carbajal said. “Things are not where they should be at this point. They’ve had some internal issues. Romero is working with us but an (EMS) administrator resigned without notice, and it threw everything into a bit of a tailspin.”
No, she fired him and there was probably a good reason. Now two paramedics are operating that desk. Whatever internal problems the Hospital is suffering, we hope they’re corrected soon. The County clearly needs that third ambulance.
Let’s go, Brenda. We know you have many fires to extinguish but could you move this one up on your list of priorities, please?