What is Going on at the Glenbrook SEMS Station?

                                                                                                                Eight Webster Valley Road

                                                                                                                Darien, CT  06820

                                                                                                                September 5, 2013

Mr. Ron Hammer

Director of Operations-Post 53

P. O. Box 2066

Darien, CT  06820

Dear Mr. Hammer:

On June 3, 2013, you made a presentation to the Board of Selectmen. Part of your presentation dealt with the Stamford EMS (SEMS) station in Glenbrook, Stamford.  You said that the Glenbrook SEMS ambulance with a paramedic was available to respond to Darien only from 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM. You went on to say that this ambulance was not available for Darien calls from 6:30 PM to 6:30 AM. If this ambulance is needed for half the day, why isn’t it needed the other half of the day?

You also said that from 6:30 PM to 6:30 AM the Glenbrook staff “just have a fly car,” that they “don’t do any patient care really” and that there was “no transport.” You added that this fly car was staffed by a single person, a paramedic. How can it be that a single paramedic doesn’t “do any patient care really?”

Is this paramedic available for calls in Stamford? If so, wouldn’t this mean that when this paramedic fly car is on a call in Stamford, then paramedics would have to come from more remote sites in Stamford for calls in Darien? If this paramedic fly car is just devoted to Darien, why wouldn’t it be based in Darien to cut response times?

If only a single paramedic fly car is on duty at night in Glenbrook, does that mean that this paramedic cannot travel to the hospital with a patient in a Post ambulance, even if needed, because there would be no one to drive his fly car back to Glenbrook? Is that what you meant by the fly car not providing “any patient care really.”

Perhaps, at some point, you will be able to provide a coherent and verifiable explanation to the Board of Selectmen and the whole town as to exactly what is going on in Glenbrook and why it is going on.

                                                                                                            Sincerely,

                                                                                                            Walter J. Casey