Exclusive | New FDNY order sending patients to closest hospital provokes backlash: Stupid in a word

A new city Fire Department directive aimed at slashing the rise in 911 response times has provoked a huge backlash, with patients and hospitals claiming it’s actually jeopardizing safety instead of being a lifesaver.FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker imposed a rule March 12 requiring EMS ambulance crews to transport all patients — whether their condition is life-threatening — to the nearest hospital, not one where the patients have a relationship with their doctor or where they prefer to go.The previous directive only required ambulance crews to deliver patients to the closest hospital during severe or life-threatening medical emergencies.The selection of the hospital is aided by a computer.In rare instances, an appeal to a tele-FDNY doctor can overturn the computer-aided decision.The new policy is too rigid and undermines patient safety and care, said Dr.Bret Rudy, executive vice president and chief of hospital operation at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.He said that for example, a patient with a broken hip was recently sent to the emergency department of a hospital that didn’t have an orthopedic surgeon to perform surgery.

NYU Langone’s team ended up going to the other hospital to transfer the patient to Langone for surgery.“This policy does not produce good outcomes.It’s going to result in bad outcomes,” Rudy warned to The Post.“It’s putting more patients at risk.”The new directive has led to confrontations between patients and ambulance crews, too.Eli Gottlieb, 84, said he was suffering from kidney failure and that his doctor, who was affiliated with Mt.

Sinai Brooklyn, told him to call 911 for an ambulance to take him to the facility.Gottlieb said he sat in an ambulance for 30 minutes as he haggled with its crew, which was instructed to take him to Maimonides Midwood Community Hospital.Gottlieb refused to go there, noting that the hospital that treats him, Mt.Sinai Brooklyn, was not much farther away from his home.The ambulance crew called ...