W
hat ever happened to “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”?
Notwithstanding that old fashioned but still reliable advice, some of our peninsula’s village mayors (representing Great Neck, Saddle Rock and Kings Point) are desperately trying to take away from their residents one of the few peninsula services that everyone knows they can rely on: the Alert and Vigilant ambulance and EMS services.
Our volunteer (repeat that to yourself, volunteer, ambulance responders have for decades provided all of us with what is arguably the best ambulance service on Long Island.
There may be some, during high emergency situations, who thought the service could have been faster, but then think about the prospect of sharing that high emergency situation with the much bigger area that Northwell would need to serve.
Think busy signal — which no one has ever gotten from the Alerts or the Vigilants.
To take away such an excellent service — free to residents — repeat: free to residents — in order to give it to Northwell (of all mega-medical creations) — makes no community-minded sense whatsoever.
Northwell is the new medical conglomerate, sucking up doctors, labs, therapists, computerized records, you name it, that used to be North Shore Hospital.
If you had not been there recently, let me remind you: North Shore Hospital is the infamously unclean facility that could not even keep patient bathrooms clean. (Just ask me: I know.)
I suppose the complaints mounted up so high over the years that there was no way to dig themselves out from their own disregard that there was no way out except to…change the name! Just sweep all those bad habits under the old rug and put down a new covering right over the old, lumpy mess.
And Presto: Northwell was born, clean and new.
Except the same bad habits that existed before the name change are now just orphan complaints for which no one is responsible.
Setting aside the individual doctors, have you ever tried to get an answer from someone in Northwell’s administration?
If you have, then you know the predictable barriers that are thrown in your way: endless voice mail, confusing prompts, disappearing customer service reps who are there one day but not the next, and so forth.
Now, take out your individual crystal ball and see what happens to your ambulance request if Northwell is put in charge.
The same medical monolith you can’t penetrate now says it can provide a level of emergency ambulance service comparable to what you’d expect from your next door neighbors in the Alerts and Vigilants.
But if this idea is so transparently preposterous, why are three of our villages following the demands of their individual mayors rather than their residents?
Of course the mayors all say: blah, blah, blah to save on taxes — but somehow those claims are never followed by an actual lowering of taxes.
To lower taxes did the village of Kings Point ever consider accepting the decision of the courts to stop grabbing acres of Kings Point Park?
No: hundreds of thousands of dollars went into that hole, never to be seen again.
But the same mayor thinks to save tax dollars by pushing the costs of your ambulance service onto your insurance policy.
The mayor of Great Neck likewise is dreaming of a glorious new Village Hall, completely unwanted by village residents, while he tries to pinch a few of your pennies by shifting the cost of ambulance service onto your insurance policies. And to all of these mayors I say: What happens to us if our insurance companies say they won’t cover all or part of the ambulance charges?
You know that answer: We will be billed directly for that cost.
Judging by the rates being charged by Northwell for the use of various equipment, tests, personnel (non-doctor), etc., I think we can all foresee that insurance companies will resist paying Northwell’s top dollar charges for ambulance equipment and personnel.
And you and I will be stuck paying the overages, that is if we are lucky enough to have insurance in the first place.
We are so fortunate to have the Alerts and Vigilants in our community.
Whether through their fire fighting efforts, EMS training or ambulance services, these volunteers have always stood by their neighbors.
For some of our mayors to even consider denying us this life-saving benefit is simply unconscionable.
Our residents’ lives depend on the immediate availability of these services.
We can’t wait while Northwell’s larger geographic responsibilities put other communities ahead of our emergency calls.
If you live in Great Neck, Saddle Rock or Kings Point, please take the advice in Judy and Joseph Rosenthal’s excellent letter of March 3rd: Email Mayor Bral at: PBral@village of greatneck.org
Email Mayor Levy at: info@saddlerockny.gov
Email Mayor Kalnick at: info@villageofkingspoint.,org
Elizabeth Allen
Great Neck
