Since its inception two years ago, Hatzulas Nefashos continues to flourish.
Over the past number of months, leaders of the Lakewood establishment who apparently feel that this impressive growth threatens Central Jersey (CJ) Hatzolah's exclusivity have advanced numerous attempts to maintain their dominance in the community's emergency medical services.
A new war tool has now been deployed: CJ's paramedics.
Years ago, to help boost funding for hospitals, the State Legislature passed a law that required all paramedic services (known as Advanced Life Support - ALS) to be hospital based. Subsequently, the hospitals closed up their services and merged them into a private enterprise known as MONOC. That company has closed. Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas now runs the paramedic service that services Ocean County.
In Lakewood, the the RWJ Barnabas paramedics are also CJ members. Hatzolah veteran and Township Committee member Meir Lichtenstein has explained that CJ dispatches the ALS units and then requests RWJ to "dispatch" the ALS units which are already on scene. However, the established protocol for requesting ALS service in Ocean County is through contacting RWJ.
With that in mind, here is what occurred on Tuesday evening:
A family made the intentional decision to call Hatzulas Nefashos to respond to an emergency incident.
Hatzulas Nefashos was on scene in 65 seconds from when the call was initiated. A Hatzulas Nefashos ambulance was on scene within 4 minutes.
The Hatzulas Nefashos units that responded are State Certified with a number of years of experience.
Due to an abundance of caution and as per applicable protocols, a request for medics was made to Robert Wood Johnson. Based on their ETA response a decision was made to load the patient while waiting arrival of the paramedics. After the patient was loaded and Hatzulas Nefashos received an updated ETA, a decision was made to begin transport, also as per established protocols.
The paramedic that was operating on the dispatched RWJ response vehicle is a member of CJ, and inexplicably decided to involve CJ in the matter as evident by the publicly released radio recordings.
CJ jumped on the opportunity to use their ALS units to harass Hatzulas Nefashos.
Here's what occurred: The RWJ ALS units delayed their own response time!
How we know this: When Hatzulas Nefashos originally requested medics from RWJ, they were given an ETA. Immediately afterwards, the responding RWJ member who is also a CJ member called CJ dispatch and asked if they had a call at that location. They were told "no." At that point the responding RWJ member realized that Hatzulas Nefashos was on scene. The RWJ member reacted by not responding to the scene. Once the original ETA given by RWJ passed, Hatzulas Nefashos called again and were then told "oh, there's been a delay..."
Additionally, once on scene, against established procedures, the arriving RWJ/CJ units refused to board the Hatzulas Nefashos ambulance to assess and treat the patient. Against parental permission, RWJ/CJ units forcefully removed the patient from the Hatzulas Nefashos ambulance and transferred the patient to a CJ ambulance. This was done on a major roadway, without regard to patient or crew safety.
Following this incident, articles were posted on Lakewood Alerts, Yeshiva World News, and Matzav.com.
These articles attempted to decry Hatzulas Nefashos as "botching the emergency response."
However, Hatzulas Nefashos did no such thing. They simply requested ALS units from RWJ. The RWJ ALS units who were also CJ members were used to turn the emergency response situation into an opportunity to harass Hatzulas Nefashos.
Moreover, contrary to what was reported, the child did not suffer a skull fracture, was never admitted to the Pediatric ICU, and was released shortly after their arrival to the hospital.
Lakewood Alerts, Yeshiva World News, and Matzav.com have since removed the story from their sites.
The real issue of concern here should be that the use of CJ's ALS units to harass Hatzulas Nefashos detracted from patient care. Luckily in this particular incident no one got killed. However in the future we may be not so lucky.
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26 comments:
When ALS is requested to a scene, they sign onto the agencies channel. When the agency doesn't actually exist it causes confusion to who they're responding to. Since Hatzolas Nefashos is not in any emergency service agreement, the paramedic unit was trying to figure out who he was going to.
How come you don’t write the facts that the child went unconscious and that HN called lakewood Hatzloah
The HCJ medics refused to board the Sekunos Nefashos ambulance, but forcibly removed the patient from the ambulance??? Must be magicians
Whatever the truth- hatzla nefoshos is risking having any hatzoloh unzerer paramedics. It took Years to establish. Volunteer paramedics have NEVER been allowed in NJ. And any paramedics approved in NY couldn't touch a NJ patient unless a Dr was literally overseeing him. Even when a paramedic based NY arrived to the hospital with a NJ Hatzalah and reported to triage in that the pateint has bruising from side impact and the trauma unit should be accessed immediately, he was ignored as he was ONLY an emt in NJ. It has taken decades to get paramedics to be available via hatzala in conjunction with MONOC and now in this are RWJ
Hatzala nefoshos is jeprodizeing all that hatzala CJ has built.over the past 30 years. It's a klal organization and any disagreement will Chas vshalom destroy the paramedic accessibility to the area via RWJ program. It may cause the entire hatzala program to falter.
This will delay ALS support.
The new oilam who has moved to town wants to be in the boys club and be the bosses. There was nothing wrong with hatzla before.
Well what did they expect when they built houses for a whole new group of people? Just wait until they take over. Enjoy.
Curious what the bulk discount you give Burnak for all the articles he writes here
I’m surprised by your stance on Hatzolah. They’re an incredible organization, and I expected more from you.
U are always on hatzolahs nefushes side. Whatever the story will be. And if they didn't boared the ambulance how can they remove the patient?
And also. why should hatzolah medics go along on the transport with hatzolahs nefushes. Wich can also cause problems if there is a call on way back. And can hatzolahs nefushes transport with Als? As per rules
FAA,
As a reader of this site I appreciated the honesty with which you wrote your articles (even if I had to tolerate the occasional snide remark thrown in for good measure.) The professional, fact driven tone of your articles, even when being critical of people and or organizations separated you from all the rabble rousers, anti establishment haters.
Your emotional stance on HN/CNJ has put that all into question for me.
The video circulating on social media shows the Hatzala medics standing at the foot of the ambulance and reaching in to removed the patient who was on a backboard. The video also shows the mother screaming, what are you doing? The patient is also clearly not unconscious in the video.
It is not Hatzulas Nefashos that is jeopardizing the ALS program, its the Hatazala members that are acting as hooligans that put it into jeopardy.
As per the rules, the medics are supposed to treat and transport on the original responding agency's ambulance - even hatzulas nefashos.
Thank you FAA for giving a voice to those that are the underdogs and not just being another outlet for the bullies.
Why doesn’t your article point out that HN was on scene from 6:20 until 6:50 without calling for medics? Is there a reason you’d try to hide the important facts?
What's the point of HN if they don't have there own medics?
We don't need there service. Hatzolah has members everywhere in Jackson. The NH is just causing problems and a big chilel hashem.
After HN opened they started taking in SOME members from that area
HN & Hatzula is here to stay. Stop acting like babies and think of the patient first rather than you stupid ego
Bullying is very very obvious. Even if it is for a good cause, it is still bullying. When I see overt bullying it really makes me wonder if there is something other than the good of the Tzibbur. In addition it is a well known fact that when there is healthy competition the consumer always benefits as the providers need to do a good job and can not be complacent. If HCJ cared primarily about the tzibbur they would share their resources and knowledge.
and embrace competition. When it needs to be only them I think it gives off a terrible feeling and the tzibbur is smart and knows that. Let HCJ publicly state that they allow another company and just have criteria that need to be met in order to endorse and we will start believing them. P.S. we all know that the members of HCJ are real Tzaddikim and all the members I have sooken to rightfully distance themselves from their leaderships bullying
You are incorrect and it is horribly wrong for you to say that they deliberately did not respond to the call initially. There is a priority system and it is very conceivable that another higher priority call that can alter the eta. I used to respect what you do as a reporter. But on multiple issues you have shown while you may sometimes be a good reporter your bias shines through in other occasions.
Hatzolas nefoshes כאשר יענו אותו כן יפרוץ
It’s an embarrassment the way CJhas manipulated the community and tried hard to fabricate such lies in order to try to raise themselves… what ego and power come between patient care it is sickening. Yeshiva world and all of his extra news medias like Lakewood scoop ripped down the false narrative they spread after the damage was already done of sending this fabricated story viral. I hope HN takes legal action! As well the parents of the boy are fuming by the lies. The child was fine and never went into the ICU and was home 2 hours later!
HN keep up your amazing work!!!!!! Show CJ how mafias don’t work for our community and you should continue to spread the good you are doing for us! Shame on Hatzala Lakewood
Child was NEVER unconscious and parents wrote publicly this entire story was fabricated and their son was home 2 hours later never went to ICU! Get your facts! HN did not call Hatzolah they called RWJ and Hatzala medic works for them and dispatched the call to hatzolah paramedics
Which delayed the call purposely! Stop reading fabricated articles from a news site like CNN! Yeshiva world= Fake news.. they took down the fake article
Shame on Hatzolah! Too many people with egos
Some of the comments here are beyond belief. Don’t know if I should call them comical or sad. HCJ should share their resources and knowledge? HCJ does not need to boost themselves in any given way. They have been around in Lakewood for 40 years. They have always been a step ahead in knowledge, equipment, care and the dream of every other Hatzolah, for the quickest response. They’ve been growing and expanding to keep up the demand, at an incredible pace. Running a successful medic program for many years. Unfortunate for those that didn’t qualify to be accepted into CJH, that want to convince patients to call them instead. As proof of their not caring about what is best for the patients, see how they used to falsely advertise that they have a full care of ALS and BLS. Surprisingly, the ALS part was removed. Now the truth is out that why call an experienced Hatzolah with highly experienced Medics and multiple PAs, when you could call HN and have them call 911 medics for you who may show up in 10-15 or more minutes. It obviously breaks the hearts of whoever knows the truth, and HCJ should absolutely not have any interaction whatsoever with HN. 100+ Rabbanim signed a letter for a reason. And contrary to the garbage you may read by some anonymous commenter, Rabbanim are not anonymous and are not forced to sign anything.
I’m looking forward to the day where another organization doesn’t cause such hostility. If it was truly about helping the klal hatzala would be offering to help and train and do whatever if “lives were at risk”. Politics is what makes this so sad. Sad to see the same year of October 7th such messy politics still exist in a space of helping our community.
when children are encouraged to make false emergency calls—even on Shabbos—to a competing first aid organization, it raises serious concerns, damning articles in the press, accuse of murder, etc..
How can we expect individuals to seek paramedic assistance in true emergency situations when such behaviors are being promoted?
מי הרודף - מי הנרדף
Regarding CJH Harrasment of HN with all of their justifications, etc. I don't know how they call it in Lakewood, but in Israel we call it Ball S....
Ball What???
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