christ-hospital-care-point-logo.jpg

CarePoint, which owns Jersey City's Christ Hospital, has won a contract to provide ambulance services to Jersey City. CarePoint will work with McCabe to provide the service.

(CarePoint)

Jersey City is switching ambulance providers, awarding a contract to for-profit CarePoint Health and Bayonne-based McCabe Ambulance over the Jersey City Medical Center, which has provided those services for 130 years.

The new, three-year pact, if approved by the City Council next week, would bring in $2.6 million for the city annually, officials said in announcing the change.

In its most recent contract, JCMC has been charging the city $3.8 million a year for ambulance service over the last three years, but CarePoint/McCabe offered to pay the city for the contract.

The $2.6 million from CarePoint/McCabe would allow the city to pay for firefighters who act as first responders for any calls the new providers cannot respond to in time, according to city officials.

“We made the right choice for the taxpayers of Jersey City and equally important we made the right choice for anybody who needs transportation to the hospital,” Mayor Steve Fulop said in a statement. “This ensures Jersey City residents will receive the highest quality of emergency health care.”

CarePoint -- which owns Bayonne Medical Center, Christ Hospital in Jersey City and Hoboken University Medical Center -- bid to win the ambulance-service contract in a partnership with McCabe, owned by Mickey McCabe.

CarePoint has not purchased his 40-year-old company, McCabe said.

The move is being panned by JCMC spokesman Marc Rabson and Ward C Councilman Rich Bogggiano, who called the deal "pathetic."

"We're being run by out-of-towners again,” Boggiano said.

Referring to Fulop and former Mayor Bret Schundler, Boggiano said, “Evidently we have another Mr. Schundler on our hands.”

Rabson, meanwhile, said the city will "take its chances" with CarePoint and McCabe, which Rabson called "an unproven, untested EMS provider." JCMC offered to provide the service for free.

“Jersey City residents will be reaping the consequences of today’s decision for years to come in terms of unreliable response times, an unproven level of healthcare services provided and the transportation fees associated with a for-profit EMS provider,” he said.

SEE INTERNAL MEMO FROM CHRIST HOSPITAL CEO TO STAFF

McCabe laughed when he heard Rabson’s comments, and later called the attack “blasphemous.”

“McCabe Ambulance has worked hand-in-hand with Jersey City EMS for the last 25, 30 years,” he said. “As far as being unexperienced, untested – we're 40 years in existence. We have been doing emergency work since the beginning and 911 work since the inception of the 911 system.”

McCabe Ambulance provides services for Bayonne, which pays the company about $800,000 annually to go on an average 10,000 emergency calls a year.

McCabe said he estimates the company will provide about 40,000 emergency transports to Jersey City hospitals if the city contract is approved next week.

"The bottom line is that McCabe Ambulance has proudly stood the test of time and demonstrated, year after year, its commitment to the welfare of Hudson County residents with fast response times and outstanding patient care,'' Peter Kelly, CEO of Christ Hospital, said in an internal memo to staff obtained by The Jersey Journal.

In response to Boggiano's complaint about "out of towners," Fulop noted that JCMC has been purchased by the Barnabas Health system, based in West Orange. He also noted that JCMC has been charging the city for years until now.

"When they never had anybody bidding against them, they took $4 million from us," the mayor said. "When you open it up for competition, all of a sudden they can do it for free. That's infuriating."

Last year, JCMC lost out on its chance to purchase the former nonprofit Christ Hospital when CarePoint, then known as Hudson Holdco, scooped it up in bankruptcy court for $43.5 million.

No JCMC ambulance workers will lose their jobs, Rabson said.