George,
I believe you have a doctor in the house that occasionally writes for you. May I suggest a look at the Northwell Emergency Hospital? With emergency vehicles spewing pollution 24×7 on West 12th Street between 7th and Greenwich Avenues, the hospital has created a terribly polluted zone…made more dangerous since this block feeds people into the 7th Avenue subway.
The reason the hospital gives for keeping the vehicles running is the need to keep their medical supplies cold. This could be solved in two simple ways. One, electrical feeders from the building could be constructed so these vehicles could plug into the network to keep their coolant working. That’s the simplest approach. And then, there is dry ice.
I cross this block several times a day and it’s ridiculous that a medical institution would be the cause of such health hazards. We should dry to get the EPA to track the air here. I think they would identify this zone as a hot spot.
I’ve gotten nowhere with Corey Johnson’s office nor the hospital administrators. I think a doctor could write a compelling piece about this. And it would not surprise me if this issue is repeated across the city everywhere there is an emergency hospital.
At your last meeting, the discussion talked about raising news-breaking issues that could be picked up by other news outlets. This certainly would be one. I would be happy to help out. But I think having a medical writer is essential to secure the necessary gravitas for the piece…as well as to confront Northwell to address this problem…certainly I have had no luck.
—Eric
Hi Eric, I would be happy to meet with you and discuss. I want to make sure that you are aware of what we have done in this area. Every ambulance that we have purchased during the last year have been green ambulances. We have done this to reduce emissions. We also do have an electric station where we plug our ambulance in. We were going to have a second location and actually contracted with a company to install a charging station. Unfortunately after preparing all of the wiring, the company went out of business. That being said we do have one station currently and will only be purchasing green ambulances at this point in time. We do not have any control over the other ambulances that bring patients to our facility, however we have been very mindful of our own. I did notice that one of the FDNY ambulances that was parked here the other day was a green ambulance as well. I hope that helps. Please feel free to reach out to me.
Alex Hellinger, Executive Director
Lenox Health Greenwich Village
