Dear Editor:
As a long-time resident of Jersey City, I want to thank Mayor Fulop for his decision to restart the process of selecting Jersey City’s EMS provider. I am a strong supporter of the Jersey City Medical Center and it was clear that the hospital didn’t get a fair shake during the first round of consideration. Jersey City Medical Center has been providing our city with emergency medical services for more than a century and they are among the best in the country at what they do.
In December of 2013, upon realizing that contract could be awarded to CarePoint, I started an ad-hoc organization called Save Our EMS that gained rapid community support in favor of JCMC. During the period of three months we created a public awareness campaign of the potential EMS contract change and hosted public forums in Greenville and in the Heights. Jersey City Medical Center using MARVLS technology which is a predictive model of where paramedics are needed and because of this it has decreased the amount of time to get to a location. It saves minutes and when life is on the line every second counts. JCMC EMS are the only provider who offer this model. CarePoint/McCAbe does not use this life saving technology. It doesn’t seem to be in the best interest of our city and its citizens to abandon an organization that has served us well in favor of CarePoint, which has no record of service in our community.
I am glad that the mayor heard the voices of many of us who want to see Jersey City Medical Center continue to operate as our EMS provider moving forward. I hope that the mayor’s decision signals his willingness to do the right thing for all of us.
April Kuzas