The Professional Emergency Medical Services Association
of
New Jersey
(PEMSA-NJ) wants' to know...
HOW MUCH IS YOUR SAFETY WORTH?
·
Help us DEMAND ambulances, equipment and work rules SAFE
FOR YOU and your loved ones.
·
Help us DEMAND that NJ regulations that are meant to
keep our patients safe
be enforced!
Your lives depend on it.
PEMSA-NJ represents over 500 Emergency Medical
Technicians (EMTs), Paramedics and Registered Nurses
(RN's) that work for Monmouth Ocean County Hospital
Services Corporation (MONOC), which is owned and
operated by 15 New Jersey hospitals.
PEMSA-NJ has
been seeking a contract for the past three years with
MONOC which protects the safety of our members and the
patients we serve.
Every day we save lives...that is our calling.
But today we are asking for YOUR HELP to make
MONOC and the HOSPITALS they serve FIX some very serious
SAFETY ISSUES that severely impact
your safety and
the QUALITY OF CARE we can provide.
DIRTY EQUIPMENT
Would you drink from a dirty straw used by someone else?
It took
nine months of complaints
by PEMSA-NJ
to the State Department of Health to get MONOC to
purchase disposable tubing for our portable ventilators.
For years we were required to RE-USE ventilator
tubing without the proper decontamination equipment.
Tubing that is not cleaned and dried correctly
can grow mold spores and pass infections, such as the
deadly antibiotic resistant staph infection MRSA, into
the lungs of the next patient.
PROPER
DRUG STORAGE
Would you
eat a tuna sandwich left in a hot car all day?
Following drug manufacturer's guidelines are critical to
ensure medication safety. Some drugs require
refrigeration, or they may become less effective or even
deactivate. Despite
PEMSA-NJ’s complaints, MONOC has FAILED to provide
cooling for these drugs and will not authorize staff to
throw out drugs that have become overheated.
Staff are
required to use these drugs to treat a life
threatening rapid heart rate, seizures, and to rapidly
paralyze someone who needs an emergency breathing tube.
CRITICAL
PATIENT TRANSPORT
If you were having a heart attack, what would
you prefer?
A special medical unit with trained
personnel and specialized equipment; or a traditional
ambulance?
State regulations require that if a
patient in "critical condition" must be transported from
one hospital to another they should be sent in a
Specialty Care Transport (SCT) ambulance staffed with a
RN and portable ICU (intensive care unit) equipment.
Unfortunately,
MONOC does not have enough SCT ambulances in service to
cover current contracts with area hospitals. This means
that a patient in the midst of a heart attack that needs
to be sent to another hospital for open heart surgery
may actually be transported in a regular ambulance with
no specialized equipment or SCT trained nurses, despite
state requirements.
The consequences to human life are staggering.
PEMSA-NJ has made numerous complaints but the State has
not moved to enforce MONOC to follow the rules.
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT to achieve a just contract
protecting employee and patient safety.
Join the hundreds of paramedics, EMT's and RN's of
PEMSA-NJ
in our fight to achieve a fair contract and
provide the
SAFEST emergency care possible
for YOU and YOUR FAMILY!
Please write and
call members of the MONOC Board of Trustees and the
15
affiliated local Hospitals served by MONOC ambulances
and tell them the current situation is
NOT ACCEPTABLE.
Call: 732-751-7500 AND 973-322-4000
|
Jersey
Shore
Medical
Center
|
Monmouth
Medical
Center |
Clara
Maass
Medical
Center
|
|
Ocean
Medical
Center
(Brick)
|
SOCH |
Newark
Beth
Israel
Medical
Center
|
|
Riverview
Medical
Center
|
Deborah Heart and Lung |
St. Michaels Medical Center
|
|
Kimball
Medical
Center
|
Princeton
Medical
Center |
Bayshore
Hospital
|
|
Community
Medical
Center
|
St. Barnabas Medical Center |
CentraState
Medical
Center
|
PEMSA-NJ was established in 2007 to address serious
safety issues that affect public health and safety, and
to ensure that frontline health care workers such as
paramedics, emergency medical technicians and registered
nurses can continue to "save lives" under safe working
conditions and or fair wages.
For
more information on how you can help, email
Deborah Ehling, President
