HILLSBOROUGH — Residents made passion pleas to township committee members not to replace the Hillsborough Rescue Squad during a meeting Tuesday night at the township municipal complex.
Residents packed the township’s municipal complex Tuesday night. (Photo by Dave Hutchinson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
Approximately 50 people attended the meeting and more than a dozen made emotional appeals to committee members to save the rescue squad during the public portion of the meeting, which lasted more than 90 minutes.
“This isn’t a place where money should be saved, it’s more important to save lives,” said resident Judy Haas, whose son was a volunteer member of the rescue squad at age 16 and is now studying to be a doctor at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine in Rochester, Minn.
Residents, many angry, said they’re willing to pay the extra money to keep the current service. They said the comfort level they feel having township residents respond to their homes in a time of an emergency is priceless. They expressed concern about response times and having medical personnel on hand for community events.
In December, the township committee voted to issue a request for proposals for bids to take over the emergency medical services for the town. The only bid that was received came from Robert Wood Johnson Hospital.
The committee received the bid last week and has 60 days to make a decision. If the bid is accepted, the Hillsborough Rescue Squad would be dismantled.
“We’re just looking at all of our options,” said Mayor Carl Suraci.
The Hillsborough Rescue Squad didn’t submit a bid. David Gwin, the squad’s chief, said it did not do so because it could not meet a specific requirement to provide a “public safety answering point” or call center staffed by certified emergency medical dispatchers.
The bid specifications said that Somerset County’s 911 center should have the ability to send all emergency calls to the call center.
The township currently pays the rescue squad $300,000 annually and it is unclear how much money it would save by switching providers.
Future of rescue squad in doubt
Committeeman Frank DelCore said the proposed switch is about long-term sustainability. The number of volunteers for the current rescue squad has declined over the years and costs are expected to climb because more emergency medical personal must be hired, in part, because of the township’s growing population, he said.
Hillsborough has approximately 40,000 residents and large new residential developments are under construction.
The paid crews work during the day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. while volunteer crews covered the night shift.
The decision to seek a request for proposals was sparked by a 2014 consultant’s report that assessed the township’s emergency medical services and concluded “the status quo is unsustainable” and “outsourcing EMS may be the best option.”
The report was drafted by Fitch and Associates, which provides management services for Robert Wood Johnson’s University Hospital’s Mobile Health Service (EMS).
Francis Straz, a Hillsborough resident who served on the Somerville EMS for 20 years and spent two more years on the Hillsborough EMS before retiring, has started a petition to save the rescue squad. It already has more than 1,000 signatures.
Straz said a switch would greatly diminish response time to fires, mass casualties and mass events.
RWJ, which would enter into a five-year contract with the township, already services Bridgewater, Bound Brook, Manville and South Bound Brook among other municipalities, township officials said. It’ll have two ambulances serving Hillsborough at all times compared to the seven owned by the township.
The Hillsborough Rescue Squad, as is RWJ, is a private contractor, township officials pointed out.
Formed in 1955 by 16 charter members, Hillsborough EMS has evolved into one of the largest EMS organizations in central New Jersey and was named “Public EMS Provider of the Year” in 2004 and 2009 by the New Jersey Department of Health, Office of Emergency Medical Services, according to the Hillsborough EMS website. The department currently has 20 full- and part-time employees.
In 2016, the Hillsborough EMS responded to 3,501 calls.
Dave Hutchinson may be reached at dhutchinson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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