Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, center, was joined by other elected officials, including Public Advocate Letitia James, right of Crowley, outside City Hall last week to call on the mayor to overhaul the city’s emergency response system. Photo courtesy William Alatriste/NYC Council
Elected officials want the mayor to put his emergency call-taking system on hold.
City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Maspeth) joined with city leaders on the steps of City Hall last week to demand Mayor Bill de Blasio ends the city’s Unified Call Taker system when filtering emergency calls to save time – and potentially lives.
Crowley, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services, said the current protocols wasted precious minutes and made it harder for emergency responders to do their jobs.
“Billions of dollars later, New York City is no safer now than it was before the implementation of this flawed pilot project,” Crowley said. “When a fire or medical emergency is called into 911, that call should be immediately connected to the appropriate fire or EMS dispatcher.”
Crowley and other officials argued the current UCT system did not allow emergency dispatchers to connect calls to the appropriate channels until specific information has been collected. The end result, officials said, included potential victims having to answer the same questions multiple times, responders being sent to wrong addresses and precious time wasted.
UCT was first put into practice in 2009 for fire and EMS incidents and requires that fire emergencies go through a Police Department call taker first before it hits the FDNY. For officials like City Public Advocate Letitia James, that was not good enough.
“The ongoing problems with the city’s Unified Call Taker program are deeply disturbing,” James said. “It is time the city begin phasing-out the program while emergency fire and medical calls are routed to the appropriate borough-based dispatchers. New Yorkers cannot risk a wasted minute when seeking emergency assistance.”
Officials argued for a simple three-step fix that would immediately put the caller in touch with a fire or emergency medical dispatcher so they can get right to finding a solution.
“This simple change to the call-taking process could be achieved at no financial cost to the administration and was specifically recommended by the city’s own independent investigation of the 911 system in 2012,” Crowley said.
Response times have been at the center of attention for weeks since Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris called for a 60-day suspension of the city’s 911 Emergency Communications Transformation Program overhaul, which includes the UCT system. Shorris wrote a letter to city commissioners calling for a Department of Investigation review of the entire program, which he called over budget and years behind schedule.
De Blasio and his administration rolled out a detailed review of the entire 911 system late last week in response to the scrutiny, including an examination of the call process, an analysis of call handling and an assessment of previous studies done on the system.
“New York City’s 911 emergency response system is the largest and most expansive system of its kind in the country. Last year alone, 10 million calls were placed, the vast majority of which were handled swiftly and accurately,” Shorris said. “But when lives are at stake, we have no room for error, and we must always strive for perfection. The review underway of our city’s entire 911 system by new leadership in each of the agencies involved will provide vital information necessary to ensuring the continued safety and well-being of all New Yorkers.”
By Phil Corso
