According to Westwood Administrator Robert Hoffmann, HUMC approached the borough about housing the two paramedics units, as well as two backup rigs, on borough property shortly before Christmas. Hoffmann said Tuesday that he expects the Jan. 9 move to the DPW garage to be a permanent one.

HUMC won the license for the single MICU that formerly operated out of Pascack Valley Hospital (PVH) last fall with a $3.6 million bid that blew other bidding hospitals, including The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood , out of the water. HUMC doubled the number of units to two, both of which have been staffed with two paramedics each and have been available 24 hours a day, seven days a week since service began in late November.

With their return to Westwood, the units will continue to serve 18 municipalities in the Pascack and Northern valleys: Closter, Emerson, Harrington Park , Haworth, Hillsdale, Montvale, northern New Milford, Northvale, Norwood, Old Tappan, Oradell, northern Paramus, Park Ridge, River Vale, Rockleigh, Township of Washington , Westwood, and Woodcliff Lake . 

In late October, there was talk among the Woodcliff Lake Mayor and Council about negotiating with The Valley in Ridgewood for an additional MICU to be placed at the Tice Center in Woodcliff Lake to service the northernmost Pascack Valley municipalities. While Woodcliff Lake, Park Ridge and Montvale are serviced by the Tri-Boro Ambulance Corps, there were worries that certain situations demanding MICU assistance (advanced life support in a non-transport vehicle) in addition to, or instead of, EMT response (basic life support with the capability of transporting patients to area hospitals) could arise. The distance between tri-borough municipalities and the MICUs stationed to the south, in such a situation, could exacerbate life-threatening issues.

Luckily, said Tri-Borough Ambulance Corps Captain Heather McGee, the mayor and council’s worries have luckily not come to pass.

“They [HUMC] has been excellent with that,” McGee said Monday night prior to the corps’s officer meeting, adding that, if anything, the service to tri-borough municipalities has improved with the addition of a second unit.

What has had a greater effect on the 70-year-old Tri-Boro corps, as well as the ambulance services throughout Pascack Valley , is the loss of a local emergency room. 

“We had a great relationship with Pascack Valley Hospital ,” said McGee. “It was exactly five miles away. If we were dropping someone off, we could turn around and respond to a call. We don’t have that luxury anymore.”

Now, said McGee, Tri-Boro’s 40 volunteers, who respond to about 1,500 calls annually, travel an additional 14 miles to reach HUMC and 16 miles to reach Englewood Hospital & Medical Center . The distance, combined with traffic congestion and sitting with patients while they wait in full emergency rooms, has increased average call time by an estimated 50 percent.

“The average call used to take about one hour from start to completion,” said McGee. “Now it averages about one-and-a-half hours… It hasn’t taken a toll on the volunteers [yet], but I don’t see them all wanting to keep going down to farther hospitals.”

Tri-Boro Officer Michael Altneu interrupted McGee to summarize: “We [ Pascack Valley ] can’t survive without an emergency room.”

Pascack Valley might not have to survive without one much longer, if Michael Mavroudis has anything to say about it.

Mavroudis is the chief operating officer of Rio Vista Companies, a development firm that is currently finishing construction on an 84,000 square foot, three-story medical facility in Oradell that Mavroudis hopes will be absorbed by a larger hospital as a satellite facility – boasting an oh-so-needed emergency room.

The facility, located at 680 Kinderkamack Road, is being outfitted to provide radiology, surgery and emergency care on the first floor while housing doctor’s offices on the second and third floors, said Mavroudis Monday. The leasing process is well on its way, with most of the third floor already leased out and tenants ready to move in next month.

Mavroudis said that Rio Vista, which also owns a medical facility at 690 Kinderkamack Road, has been speaking to “two major hospitals” regarding the emergency care lease. He declined to name either one, but noted confidently, “There is one hospital that is, without a doubt, going to move in and take over the first floor.”

Once the new facility is complete, the total square footage of medical care space between 680 and 690 Kinderkamack Road will total approximately 140,000, about half the size of Pascack Valley Hospital , said Mavroudis.

Additionally, the new facility is at somewhat closer to most Pascack Valley towns than the closest hospital, The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood . The Rio Vista space is closest to Emerson, .93 miles from Emerson Borough Hall whereas Valley is 4.89 miles away. The only Pascack Valley municipality for which Valley continues to be a closer choice is Montvale, where borough hall is 8.28 miles from Valley and 10.12 miles away from the new medical facility.

While Pascack Valley waits to see what the future holds for local emergency care, the Borough of Westwood continues to deal with the messy issue of bankruptcy proceedings. At the Jan. 2 meeting, the mayor and council authorized Borough Attorney Russell Huntington to seek out additional legal counsel, not to exceed $5,000 in costs, as the bankruptcy hearing on Feb. 4 quickly approaches.

“This is specialty law,” Administrator Robert Hoffmann later explained. “[ Huntington ] may need some special expertise.”

As one of PVH’s creditors, the borough is owed payments in lieu of taxes as well as taxes on certain portions of the former hospital property.

It will be up to Huntington to determine if he needs the additional counsel, but, said Hoffmann, the governing body wanted to cover all its bases.

“We wanted to make sure the rights of the borough, and the rights of the residents, are protected.”

Maggie Fazeli Fard's e-mail address is fazelifard@northjersey.com.