City to release report on emergency services

Will present findings of comprehensive ICMA review at meeting on Tuesday

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Nearly a year after it launched a comprehensive review of its emergency services in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the city will release the findings of a report that it says provides options for enhancing public safety at a presentation on Tuesday at City Hall.

The Jan. 13 public meeting will begin at 7 p.m., where the city will present a report conducted by the International City/County Management Association Center for Public Safety Management, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that provides technical assistance to communities in the areas of police, fire, EMS, and homeland security.

Amid concerns among residents in the wake of Long Beach Medical Center’s closing — and the lack of a 911-receiving emergency department — the city hired ICMA last March to assess the city’s emergency-response needs and help identify options for enhancing those services going forward.

“Given the uncertainty regarding the fate of the hospital and the status of a 911 receiving emergency room, the city took its next step in its sustained advocacy to bolster emergency services by hiring an expert consulting firm to perform a full-scale evaluation of its emergency response needs,” the city said in a statement. “The consultants have assessed the city’s current emergency response needs to have helped identify options for enhanced emergency services going forward.”

According to the city, ICMA has issued a comprehensive report “on the state of the city’s emergency response practices that recommends options to enhance public safety in light of constraints — including but not limited to available hospital facilities — which includes “the analyses of qualitative and cost considerations,” and sets forth implementation strategies.

ICMA provides technical assistance, training and professional development to more than 9,000 city, town, and county experts and other individuals throughout the world, according to the city's website.

With LBMC shuttered, residents and local officials alike have expressed concern about the lack of an emergency department in town, with the Long Beach Fire Department saying that the hospital's closure has strained turnaround times on ambulances.

“The ICMA Center for Public Safety Management will present their findings and recommendations as part of the study the city commissioned to determine the most efficient manner to deliver emergency services, particularly in light of the hospital being closed,” City Manager Jack Schnirman said at the Jan. 6 City Council meeting.

Though South Nassau Communities Hospital has acquired the former Long Beach Medical Center and plans to establish a free-standing emergency department that would operate 24/7 and accept ambulances, it could be at least a year before such a facility is constructed.

SNCH officials said it is likely that the hospital’s heavily damaged eastern buildings — the three oldest on the campus — could be demolished starting in the spring.*

If the west wing — which housed the emergency department — can be used, then South Nassau will begin renovating and restoring it, which could take at least a year. If the wing has to be demolished, however, officials said, South Nassau would likely rebuild the emergency department on the hospital grounds or work with the city to find another site in Long Beach that is centrally located — which could take longer than a year.

The Long Beach Fire Department operates three ambulances and also receives assistance from nearby departments. Fire Commissioner Scott Kemins and Fire Chief Rich Corbett have told the Herald in the past that turnaround times have strained the department’s resources, and that it can take an ambulance two hours to transport a patient to another facility and return to Long Beach, compared with the 15 minutes it took when LBMC was operational. The closure of the hospital also poses challenges for police officers and lifeguards, officials said.

The ICMA report also comes at a time when the city and the Long Beach Professional Firefighters Local 287, the union representing the city’s career firefighters, are at odds over the planned layoffs of five members on Feb. 15 after a nearly $1 million, two-year federal grant that funded the five positions ended on Dec. 1. The city and union reached a temporary agreement on Dec. 31 that avoids the layoffs, initially slated for Jan. 1, as talks continue.

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