By KRISTEN JOHNSON
Special to the OBSERVER
WESTFIELD - It's late afternoon. You're driving down East Main Street, anxious to get home after a long day at work. For about the last 10 minutes, you've felt as though someone has been squeezing your chest in a vise. Your shoulders and arms have felt achy and you're fighting to drive through waves of nausea.
The impending heart attack doesn't wait until you get home. Excruciating pain burns suddenly in your chest and you lose control of your vehicle, hitting an oncoming vehicle head-on. As you're waiting for the Westfield volunteer fire department ambulance to arrive, you're scared but not overly nervous. After all, Westfield Memorial Hospital is less than a mile away from the scene of the accident and you feel sure the doctors and nurses there will be able to take care of you.
But when the ambulance flies past the hospital on its way to either Brooks Memorial Hospital in Dunkirk or WCA Hospital in Jamestown, there's only one thought in your mind: ''Am I going to make it?''
That fiction is closer to being truth than some might think - Westfield Memorial Hospital is months away from losing its emergency room, a move that some fear could spell disaster for the 30,000 people the hospital serves.
''We are gravely concerned about this,'' said Karen Surlaka, the hospital's vice president. ''Keeping our emergency room is an absolute must.''
THE BERGER COMMISSION
In late 2006, the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century - commonly known as the Berger Commission - issued recommendations designed to restructure and consolidate the hospital and nursing home systems in New York.
Among those recommendations was one that targeted Westfield Memorial Hospital. The commission said the hospital should eliminate all 32 of its in-patient beds and convert from a hospital to an outpatient ''urgent care'' center.
The commission's ultimate recommendation regarding Westfield Memorial Hospital veered sharply away from a recommendation submitted to the commission by its own Western New York Regional Advisory Committee. The advisory committee, in no uncertain terms, said the ''Westfield community must have an appropriate level of medical care that would include emergency care, ambulatory surgery, diagnostic services and other outpatient programs that are appropriate and needed in the community.''
The Berger Commission's recommendation became law on Jan. 1, 2007, and affected hospitals - like Westfield - were required to submit plans outlining implementation of the commission's recommendations.
After discussions with state health officials regarding the commission's recommendations, Westfield Memorial Hospital kept four in-patient beds along with its six-bay emergency room. With the exception of maternal and child health and labor and delivery services, the hospital today offers the same services it did before the Berger Commission's report was issued.
But now, state health officials want to force Westfield Memorial Hospital to close its emergency room, get rid of its last four in-patient beds and convert to a 12-hour ''urgent care'' facility. And if hospital officials can't prove to the state that the closure of the emergency room would result in what state health officials call ''life safety issues,'' the emergency room would close on June 30, 2010.
''Keeping our emergency room is an absolute must,'' Ms. Surlaka said. ''We don't have a lot of time to get word out to our patients and change the state's mind.''
FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS
If Westfield Memorial Hospital loses its emergency room, Ms. Surlaka said the implications would be far-reaching. About 7,600 people each year visit the emergency room. The hospital serves a large Amish and elderly population, most with limited access to other means of transportation.
The hospital employs 25 people in the emergency room. While it's not clear whether all of those people would lose their jobs in the transition to an urgent care facility, Ms. Surlaka said the hospital would trim about 50 jobs because ''an urgent care model requires fewer people'' to keep it running.
That's not all, though. Westfield-area residents who need emergency room services would need to be transported to Brooks Memorial Hospital in Dunkirk, a 22-mile drive, or to WCA Hospital, a 28-mile drive. That's because as a 12-hour urgent care facility, Westfield Memorial Hospital would no longer be able to accept ambulances.
''Let's say I had a heart attack right in front of the hospital,'' Ms. Surlaka said. ''As it stands now, they could get me into our emergency room and take care of me. But if we convert to an urgent care facility, someone would have to call an ambulance and I would have to be transported to Brooks or WCA - even though there might be providers right inside the hospital who could assist in caring for me. And if I had a heart attack in Westfield, the ambulance would have to drive past the hospital to take me elsewhere. An employee who had a heart attack here would have to be transported elsewhere by ambulance.''
One big problem with transporting patients from the Westfield area to hospitals in Dunkirk and Jamestown is that there are no paid ambulance services - like Jamestown's ALSTAR EMS - in Westfield.
Westfield-area residents currently rely on volunteer ambulance services. For volunteer EMTs, calls to get patients to the Westfield hospital currently mean about an hour-and-a-half away from work. But if the hospital is no longer allowed to accept ambulances and EMTs are forced to transfer patients to Dunkirk or Jamestown, they could be away from their jobs for about three hours.
''Employers can't have employees gone that long from their jobs during the course of a day,'' Ms. Surlaka said. ''Our volunteer EMTs have told us that they can't transport patients out of this area and will probably have to stop providing ambulance service to citizens here. If that happens, what's going to happen to our patients?''
Ms. Surlaka said hospital officials have spoken with County Executive Greg Edwards about the matter. But there aren't yet any plans to expand professional ambulance service into the Westfield region, she said.
Weather is also on the hospital's list of concerns, Ms. Surlaka said. Last year, Mayville got 273 inches of snow. As any Western New Yorker knows, wintery conditions make roads treacherous. But with no local emergency room, Westfield-area patients would have little choice.
''What happens if the EMTs pick up a patient who's in critical condition?'' she said. ''The time it takes to get to Dunkirk or Jamestown means there's a greater chance that more patients will be lost en route to a hospital - and that's when the weather's good. The snow we get here is a game-changer. ''
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Westfield hospital officials have established a new Web site, www.wmhsaveslives.org, to help citizens understand the implications of losing the hospital's emergency room and offer their support.
By clicking the ''How to Help'' link at the top of the screen, citizens can sign an online petition, send a message to elected officials, write a letter to state health commissioner Richard Daines and express support by joining the hospital's Facebook and Twitter pages. Citizens who do not have computer access can visit the hospital, located on East Main Street in Westfield, or call Cindy Warner, the hospital's marketing coordinator, at 793-2272 for assistance in mailing a letter in support of the hospital.
The site, which has been live for approximately two weeks, has generated about 500 responses. But thousands more will be needed to ''get the message across to the state,'' Ms. Surlaka said.
''It's imperative for citizens to express their support of this hospital and talk about the need for emergency room services here,'' she said. ''We encourage people to share stories of people whose lives were saved here. The loss of our emergency room would simply be disastrous.''
THE BERGER COMMISSION
In late 2006, the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century - commonly known as the Berger Commission - issued recommendations designed to restructure and consolidate the hospital and nursing home systems in New York.
Among those recommendations was one that targeted Westfield Memorial Hospital. The commission said the hospital should eliminate all 32 of its inpatient beds and convert from a hospital to an outpatient ''urgent care'' center.
The commission's ultimate recommendation regarding Westfield Memorial Hospital veered sharply away from a recommendation submitted to the commission by its own Western New York Regional Advisory Committee. The advisory committee, in no uncertain terms, said the ''Westfield community must have an appropriate level of medical care that would include emergency care, ambulatory surgery, diagnostic services and other outpatient programs that are appropriate and needed in the community.''
The Berger Commission's recommendation became law on Jan. 1, 2007, and affected hospitals - like Westfield - were required to submit plans outlining implementation of the commission's recommendations.
After discussions with state health officials regarding the commission's recommendations, Westfield Memorial Hospital kept four in-patient beds along with its six-bay emergency room. With the exception of maternal and child health and labor and delivery services, the hospital today offers the same services it did before the Berger Commission's report was issued.
But now, state health officials want to force Westfield Memorial Hospital to close its emergency room, get rid of its last four inpatient beds and convert to a 12-hour ''urgent care'' facility. And if hospital officials can't prove to the state that the closure of the emergency room would result in what state health officials call ''life safety issues,'' the emergency room would close on June 30, 2010.
''Keeping our emergency room is an absolute must,'' Surlaka said. ''We don't have a lot of time to get word out to our patients and change the state's mind.''
FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS
If Westfield Memorial Hospital loses its emergency room, Ms. Surlaka said the implications would be far-reaching. About 7,600 people each year visit the emergency room. The hospital serves a large Amish and elderly population, most with limited access to other means of transportation.
The hospital employs 25 people in the emergency room. While it's not clear whether all of those people would lose their jobs in the transition to an urgent care facility, Surlaka said the hospital would trim about 50 jobs because ''an urgent care model requires fewer people'' to keep it running.
That's not all, though. Westfield-area residents who need emergency room services would need to be transported to Brooks Memorial Hospital in Dunkirk, a 22-mile drive, or to WCA Hospital, a 28-mile drive. That's because as a 12-hour urgent care facility, Westfield Memorial Hospital would no longer be able to accept ambulances.
''Let's say I had a heart attack right in front of the hospital,'' Surlaka said. ''As it stands now, they could get me into our emergency room and take care of me. But if we convert to an urgent care facility, someone would have to call an ambulance and I would have to be transported to Brooks or WCA - even though there might be providers right inside the hospital who could assist in caring for me. And if I had a heart attack in Westfield, the ambulance would have to drive past the hospital to take me elsewhere. An employee who had a heart attack here would have to be transported elsewhere by ambulance.''
One big problem with transporting patients from the Westfield area to hospitals in Dunkirk and Jamestown is that there are no paid ambulance services - like Jamestown's ALSTAR EMS - in Westfield.
Westfield-area residents currently rely on volunteer ambulance services. For volunteer EMTs, calls to get patients to the Westfield hospital currently mean about an hour-and-a-half away from work. But if the hospital is no longer allowed to accept ambulances and EMTs are forced to transfer patients to Dunkirk or Jamestown, they could be away from their jobs for about three hours.
''Employers can't have employees gone that long from their jobs during the course of a day,'' Surlaka said. ''Our volunteer EMTs have told us that they can't transport patients out of this area and will probably have to stop providing ambulance service to citizens here. If that happens, what's going to happen to our patients?''
Surlaka said hospital officials have spoken with County Executive Greg Edwards about the matter. But there aren't yet any plans to expand professional ambulance service into the Westfield region, she said.
Weather is also on the hospital's list of concerns, Surlaka said. Last year, Mayville got 273 inches of snow. As any Western New Yorker knows, wintery conditions make roads treacherous. But with no local emergency room, Westfield-area patients would have little choice.
''What happens if the EMTs pick up a patient who's in critical condition?'' she said. ''The time it takes to get to Dunkirk or Jamestown means there's a greater chance that more patients will be lost en route to a hospital - and that's when the weather's good. The snow we get here is a game-changer. ''
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Westfield hospital officials have established a new Web site, www.wmhsaveslives.org, to help citizens understand the implications of losing the hospital's emergency room and offer their support.
By clicking the ''How to Help'' link at the top of the screen, citizens can sign an online petition, send a message to elected officials, write a letter to state Health Commissioner Richard Daines and express support by joining the hospital's Facebook and Twitter pages. Citizens who do not have computer access can visit the hospital, located on East Main Street in Westfield, or call Cindy Warner, the hospital's marketing coordinator, at 793-2272 for assistance in mailing a letter in support of the hospital.
The site, which has been live for approximately two weeks, has generated about 500 responses. But thousands more will be needed to ''get the message across to the state,'' Surlaka said.
''It's imperative for citizens to express their support of this hospital and talk about the need for emergency room services here,'' she said. ''We encourage people to share stories of people whose lives were saved here. The loss of our emergency room would simply be disastrous.''
