Listen: War Abroad; Workers and EMS in Crisis at Home
While war rages overseas, FDNY EMS is in crisis with ever-increasing emergency response times and personnel unable to earn a living wage leaving in greater numbers.
By Bob Hennelly
The Guardian is reporting that in the US-Israel's war of choice on Iran, the US has dispatched a third aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, as President Trump once again threatens that country with annihilation just weeks ahead of the US midterm elections.
And here in New York, Gov. Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James to investigate an alleged gang rape at a Cornell University fraternity going back to 2024 which the local county prosecutor opted not to prosecute based only on the campus police department's investigation.
Last month, the victim, who alleges she was assaulted sued seven men, the university and the fraternity. In turn, the local DA scrambled to re-open the case.
For years now, here on WBAI we have been leading the way on reporting on the steep rise in FDNY's EMS response times as the city struggled to retain a sufficient number of EMTS, paramedics and EMS officers. At the heart of this unconscionable deterioration in the city's continued refusal, no matter who was Mayor, to pay this workforce, which is overwhelmingly composed of women and people of color, a living wage.
As a consequence, as many as 100 ambulances, almost a quarter of the city's rolling stock, can sit idle as New Yorkers die waiting for one.
This week at the City Council's Fire and Emergency Management hearing, chaired by Council Member Joann Ariola, we heard the chilling details of how this collapse of a vital service played out for a 14 year-old who had a stroke at school.
After multiple calls to EMS for well over a half hour, the parents had to drive their seriously ill son from school to the hospital.
Chair Ariola told FDNY officials at the hearing the tragic anecdote was emblematic of a troubling citywide problem.
On this week’s episode of We Decide, we talk more about the EMS crisis with Work-Bites senior editor Joe Maniscalco who covered this past week’s eye-opening Fire and Emergency Management oversight hearing.
But first up, we speak with Jihye Song from the Ain’t I a Woman Campaign, who is organizing for passage of Intro. 303—a municipal ban on home health aides working 24-hour shifts while only getting paid for 13 hours.
Intro. 303 opponents say the vulnerable elderly and disabled would lose access to essential care if the bill becomes law, and insist the real fight is in Albany to fully fund around-the-clock care.
Folk singer Judy Gorman also joins Song to about her support for Intro. 303, as well as this past weekend’s No More 24 rally at City Hall.
In our second hour, we speak to Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora
about the impact of President Trump’s mass deportation program that’s tearing Trenton families apart and terrorizing the entire immigrant community.
He is joined by Constitutional law professor Dr. Jamie Rowen, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst who discusses a landmark federal court decision that strikes down the Trump administration’s policy allowing ICE agents to arrest people for showing up in immigration court.
Listen to the entire show below: