Months after Steward Well being Care’s chapter pressured the closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Heart in Ayer, first responders within the space are calling for assist from Massachusetts leaders.
Over a dozen fireplace chiefs from communities within the space say their emergency medical companies are on the verge of collapsing. They signed a letter to Gov. Maura Healey final month, together with city leaders and state lawmakers.
“The closure of the NVMC has created a disaster state of affairs for Emergency Medical Companies on a number of fronts because of the elevated distances and occasions for ambulances and first responders to journey outdoors of the Nashoba Valley to Leominster, Harmony, Lowell, or Nashua, NH,” the letter reads.
“Individuals which can be in an ambulance that now could be takes, say, 40 minutes or an hour to get to a different hospital, the truth is for somebody possibly with a coronary heart assault, with severe accidents from a automotive accident, these individuals are extra prone to die,” Democratic Massachusetts State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, who signed the letter, advised NBC10 Boston Wednesday.
The hearth chiefs are asking for pressing funding of $9.6 million from the supplemental funds.
A part of that cash could be used to prioritize personnel prices and tools to 13 communities and to conduct an impartial examine of the Nashoba Valley EMS response system.
“It could make an amazing distinction, in simply listening to from the hearth chiefs, from the city managers, in regards to the actually tough conditions these communities are in, that residents are in,” Eldridge stated. “The stress degree of those professionals has simply reached an all-time excessive.”
NBC10 Boston reached out to Healey. In an announcement, she stated her workplace would proceed to remain in shut communication with fireplace chiefs and native officers.
“We convened a working group of group members that’s laborious at work discovering options to guard and increase entry to high-quality well being care within the area,” Healey stated within the assertion.
