By Lisa Irizarry
Newsday
MELVILLE, N.Y. — Between four and seven minutes have been shaved off ambulance response times in Mineola in the first six months of a partnership between the ambulance corps and Winthrop-University Hospital, officials said.
The arrangement makes a paramedic and emergency response truck available around the clock in the village, said Mineola Volunteer Ambulance Corps Commissioner Tom Devaney.
Before the new system was set up in August, officials had to wait for local volunteers to be called and arrive to handle the roughly 1,100 ambulance calls received by Mineola each year.
“We knew we needed to improve our response times; we were missing a number of calls,” said Devaney. “Now there’s no delay in care, and the person is on the scene in minutes with all the proper equipment . . . that would be carried in an ambulance,” Devaney said.
“This gets that one person out initiating emergency medical treatment within three minutes of dispatch,” Devaney said. “That’s huge.”
The old arrangement took from 7 to 10 minutes, he said.
Now, a paramedic remains in Mineola throughout the day, whether the person is stationed at the ambulance headquarters on Elm Place, rides in the emergency response vehicle or is having lunch.
Devaney said Mineola has 10 paramedics, but there were times when none was available because of obligations such as jobs and school. In the past, assistance had to be requested for emergency response personnel from county ambulances or neighboring areas such as Williston Park, Garden City Park and Carle Place.
Now, the new paramedic is always part of the response team.
“The person never leaves the boundaries of the village,” Devaney said. He said volunteers used to have to go to headquarters, get into a vehicle and then go on call. “That takes seven to ten minutes on a good day,” he added.
Under the agreement, the cost of the new services is paid through medical billing, “at no cost to taxpayers,” he said.
Justin Burke, a spokesman for the hospital, declined to reveal the cost.
Mayor Scott Strauss applauds the setup for the 2-square-mile village of nearly 19,000.
“This takes some of the load off the Mineola Volunteer Ambulance Corps and increases the standard of care that residents and people traversing through our community receive. There is an advance life support responder responding to the scene, rather than waiting for volunteers to arrive.”
©2015 Newsday