By Paul Liotta
Staten Island Advance
NEW YORK — Staten Island emergency medical response times are best in the five boroughs, but part of a troubling trend, according to a report released Thursday by the Independent Budget Office.
The report analyzed EMS response times from 2014 to 2024, finding slower responses across the five boroughs, but some of the speediest on Staten Island.
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FDNY breaks down EMS responses into two categories, basic life support and advanced life support. Both categories have seen similar slowing trends over the past 10 years.
Staten Island saw the best response times for advanced life support in 2024 with 82% of those calls seeing response times of less than 10 minutes. The Bronx was the worst in 2024 in that category with 75% of advanced life support calls seeing response times of less than 10 minutes.
The Island also saw the lowest decline in that metric over the past decade — a decrease of just four percentage points — with 86% of advanced life support call arrivals taking less than 10 minutes in 2014. Manhattan saw the sharpest decline, going from 90% to 78% of advanced life support calls taking less than 10 minutes.
Basic life support calls also saw response times drop over the past 10 years. In Queens, the percentage of response times less than 10 minutes for basic life support calls went from 72% in 2014 to 56% in 2024. Staten Island’s numbers in that metric went from 78% to 68%.
An increased number of calls and lower staffing levels have been main contributors to the growing response times, according to the report.
“Lack of appropriate staffing levels for these most critical calls likely contribute to longer response times‚” part of the report’s conclusion reads.
A decline in EMS personnel across the FDNY, along with the private and volunteer sectors, has been a contributing factor to slower ambulance response times around the city.
In November, FDNY EMS Chief Paul Miano told the City Council that it loses about 10 in-service ambulance units daily due to insufficient staffing.
September’s Mayor’s Management Report, an annual report card about the performance of city agencies, found that in the last five years ambulance response times for life-threatening emergencies had increased by nearly two minutes. Current ambulance response times for life-threatening emergencies trail those from a decade ago by two minutes and 12 seconds, according to the 2020 Mayor’s Management Report.
Government officials, union leaders and other advocates working to address the EMS personnel shortage mostly focus on one thing: pay parity.
On Thursday, Councilmember Joann Ariola, a Republican representing part of Queens and the chair of the Council’s Fire and Emergency Committee, called for pay increases to FDNY EMS staff and a funding increase for the FDNY overall.
“This latest report flagged two highly concerning trends: first, that response times to the most serious calls are more than two minutes longer, on average, than they were a decade ago, and second, that staffing levels have not increased proportionally to the number of calls received,” she said. “These issues must be addressed, and for a job when every second could mean the difference between life or death, it is imperative that the city do all that it can to bring response times down and ensure proper staffing. This can only be done through enhanced wages for the men and women called upon to save the lives of the citizens of this city each and every day.”
Base salary for an FDNY EMT tops out around $59,000 after five years, while firefighters with the same years of service receive a base salary around $110,000.
Amanda Farinacci, a spokesperson for the FDNY, said the department is taking a variety of steps to improve response time.
“Responding quickly to medical emergencies is central to the FDNY’s mission,” she said. “While recent increases in response times are driven in part by factors beyond our control — including rising traffic congestion and higher call volumes — we are actively working to address them by improving efficiency in high-volume areas and using telehealth to streamline care. The Department continues to pursue new strategies to reduce response times and address this serious issue.”
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