Incidents Highlight Health Care Issues

A Somerset Medical Center ambulance responded Saturday to Municipal Lot 7. It seems a man passed out in the adjacent driveway from East Seventh Street. There is a ledge where some of our al freco tipplers on Block 832 like to sit. The man had his legs in the driveway but his head and torso had fallen back on the ledge and he could not be revived.

I hesitated to mention this incident, despite the unusual appearance of a Somerset County ambulance, because every mention of street drinking on the blog revives the controversy over public intoxication. Two patrol cars arrived first to check the situation, then the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center Mobile Intensive Team ambulance, then the Somerset Medical Center ambulance.

The man was placed on a gurney and taken away by the Somerset County ambulance. Whether he was taken to the Muhlenberg emergency room or to the Somerset Medical Center, I don't know.

The reason I am mentioning this incident now is that I saw a Sept. 30 news article in the Courier News about how Somerset County is buying two ambulances for Somerset Medical Center to serve county residents. Click here to read it. This raises yet another health care question in an already crowded minefield of issues. Mutual aid is a traditional resource for health and public safety, but will Somerset County residents want to share with Union County when there is no longer a hospital in Plainfield? This is a murky situation in my mind, but maybe someone has more insight and can comment.

On Monday, longtime city resident and activist Emily Washington told the City Council about a health crisis she suffered and her hesitation and confusion about how to get help. Ill from "sugar shock," she was hesitant to call 911 because she didn't know where she would land up. She ate some candy, she said, and eventually felt better.

The council and administrators responded by telling her to call 911 the next time she is ill and not to worry about the details. But this loss of Muhlenberg does raise concerns, especially in seniors who may not have a lot of family or friends to call on to bring them things they need in a remote hospital. To their detriment, they may try to tough it out or hope their symptoms go away. Washington said three people were found dead in her high-rise senior housing recently and she wondered what transpired in their minds before they died.

The unconscious guy Saturday had to be dealt with by authorities. But Washington raises a valid concern about seniors who may not want to call for help because they fear unintended consequences. The last time Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs visited the Senior Center, she spoke about two elderly Plainfield women who were taken to JFK Medical Center and spent 24 hours on beds in a hallway waiting for rooms. One woman passed away, she said. It was a chilling thought for seniors to think of a beloved person's life ending like that.

The shrinking of health resources may be considered a good thing in Trenton, but we here in Plainfield are left to deal with the results. It's a grim time for the Queen City.

--Bernice Paglia