District Mayor Adrian Fenty on Tuesday led the first meeting of an emergency medical response task force created as part of a settlement with the family of slain New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum.
The task force, which has six months to reach its conclusions, “is about action, about results,” Fenty said. The city has learned many lessons from the total EMS breakdown the night Rosenbaum was beaten and robbed, the mayor said, but there is more to learn and more to do “to make sure that in the future nothing similar happens again.”
A failure at every level of emergency response is widely blamed for Rosenbaum’s death the night of Jan. 6, 2006. Without marked improvement to the District’s EMS system, the reporter’s family could reinitiate a monetary lawsuit against the city.
The first meeting of the task force was more procedure than substance, laying out the panel’s mission and re-examining the night that Rosenbaum, having been beaten and robbed near his Gramercy Street NW home, was confused for an injured drunk.
Dr. Michael Williams, EMS medical director, laid out dozens of technical changes his agency has implemented since Rosenbaum’s death, from personnel evaluations to electronic patient-care reporting. But Tobias Halliday, Rosenbaum’s son-in-law and task force member, said he believes the task force should be tackling the broader issues laid out in the inspector general’s report — that EMS is awash in a culture of apathy and indifference that undermines quality medical care.
EMS union representatives laid out their plans to split fire and emergency medical services into two departments. In their road map for the future, the union leaders described the current EMS system as advantageous to the “fire side,” a structure that drives many of the personnel problems cited by the inspector general.
The cases of five of the responders to the Rosenbaum scene are still before the Fire Trial Board, though Fire and EMS Chief Dennis Rubin said he expects decision within a week. All five are still on the job receiving full pay, though not responding to patients.
