By Marie Wilson
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — When an ambulance took Evelyn Stypula’s father to the hospital for a stroke in the middle of the night, she felt stranded.
“I couldn’t get into the paramedic van to accompany him,” said Stypula, 64, of Verona, who is a triple amputee and uses a motorized scooter.
She got a ride across the river to UPMC St. Margaret that night in 2006 by paying $100 to a friend who has a wheelchair lift on her van.
Now, Stypula is trying to start a program to provide emergency transportation for people with disabilities and senior citizens in Allegheny County who need to accompany relatives to the hospital between midnight and 6 a.m.
“This is something that nobody thought of, but it’s needed out there,” said Stypula, who was born with deformed legs, a stunted left arm and has used prosthetic legs or a wheelchair since the age of 4. “We do have the ACCESS system, and everybody thinks that should cover it.”
ACCESS Transportation Systems, which gives pre-scheduled rides primarily to people with disabilities, does not run between midnight and 6 a.m. And it is not possible for a person who uses a wheelchair to ride as a passenger in an ambulance, said Robert McCaughan, chief of Pittsburgh’s Emergency Medical Services.
“Ambulances are not fabricated in such a way to accommodate wheelchairs because they already have a stretcher in there,” McCaughan said. “There’s just no space in there, not to mention there’s no way to secure it.”
McCaughan and Knox Walk, director of Emergency Medical Services for Allegheny County, are working with Stypula as she tries to establish the Short-Notice Accessible Transportation program. Walk said he compiled a list of taxi and wheelchair van companies willing to be on call for the service.
Stypula is conducting a survey to gauge the level of need for the program.
“We want to see what other people’s stories are,” said Jeff Fromknecht, with United Cerebral Palsy of Pittsburgh, who is helping Stypula compile survey results.
“If my husband had to go to the hospital, he’s in a wheelchair, I wouldn’t be able to go with him because I’m handicapped as well,” said Jean Stellitano, 79, who like Stypula lives in UPMC’s Seneca Hills Village independent living facility. “I think this service would be great.”
All 52 people Stypula surveyed said they would use the Short-Notice Accessible Transportation service if it were available. And 39 people said they would not be able to find transportation between midnight and 6 a.m. without the service.
People with disabilities who live in rural areas have the most problems finding emergency transportation because they rely on shared-ride systems, said John Lorence, nursing home transition coordinator for Tri-County Patriots for Independent Living, a Washington-based organization that advocates for civil rights of people with disabilities.
“All of them (shared-ride services) require 24-hour notice of need for a trip, thus reducing independent spontaneity for emergencies let alone life in general,” Lorence said.
A lack of money is holding up establishing Short-Notice Accessible Transportation, Stypula said. She said she is looking into funding from grants or the county that could help lessen the fee users would pay.
“We’re not there yet but we’re closer than we were when we first started,” Walk said.
The service would not be for wheelchair users who want to visit hospital patients, but only for interpreters or caregivers with power of attorney at the time of an emergency hospital visit, Stypula said.
“It could still happen. They could send him to St. Margaret’s in the middle of the night and I’d have no way to get there,” Stypula said, about her 92-year-old father, who lives one building away in the nursing home at UPMC’s Seneca Hills Village. “I’m going to push for it until they say they can’t do it.”
Copyright 2010 Tribune Review Publishing Company