Opinion

Deadly delays: Mayor de Blasio’s broken promise on ambulances

Itā€™s been well over a year since MašŸ’§yor de Blasio announced the city had ā€œidentified the problemsā€ with its emergency-response system and committed himself to ā€œtaking the necessary corrective action.ā€

But the latest city data show things are still headed in the šŸ—¹wrong directišŸŽ€on.

As The Postā€™s Aaron Short reported Sunday, the response time by city EMšŸ‰Ts ļ·½and paramedics is climbing ā€” despite a drop in actual medical emergencies.

StatešŸ¼n Island has the lowest average wait time for an ambulance: 1šŸ”Æ0 minutes, 26 seconds. In The Bronx, itā€™s up to 14 minutes, 29 seconds.

Citywide, the average for 2015ā€™s first eight months was 12 minutes, 23 seconds ā€” 37 seconds slower than in šŸ‘the same period last year.

In The Bronx, Emergency Medical Service workers took 40 added seconds to respond, despite a 2 percent drop in cases. In Manhattan (which also saw fewer cases), the wait was 64 seconds longer.
When it comes to heart attacks, drug ošŸŒ verdoses and such life-threatening cases, literally every second counts.

Back in February, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro vowed to speed up ambulance responses by 20 seconds this ź§ƒyear. And the mayor pledged to hire 149 new EMS diš“”spatchers and add 54 ambulance tours.

The exact-reverse results are all too typical of Team de Blasio ā€” where announcing āœƒnew spending seems to be the last time City Hall pays attešŸ”“ntion to a problem.

Yes, the rising emergency-response times predate de Blasio. Yet he was a big EMS critic whilšŸ—¹e running for mayor ā€” and vowed to make things better.

Thing is, making good on such promises requires bird-dogging the issue. And, as Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens), whoā€™s been on top of this issue for yeašŸ§”rs, noted last winter: ā€œThere are no changes that the administration has put in place to stop the waste of critical time.ā€

De Blasio is plainly far more interested in big abstractions than in managing dailyā˜‚ services like EMS. But he asked forą²Œ the responsibility, and now heā€™s got it.

Lives are at stake.