WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The president of the largest local union representing civilian emergency service personnel in the District of Columbia said a bill to reform EMS delivery would take too much power away from the hospitals.

The Emergency Services Improvement Act of 2007, introduced by D.C. Council Member Phil Mendelson, D-at large, in April, would establish a statutory medical director’s position within the D.C. Fire and Emergency Services Department. The person would be appointed by the mayor and subject to council approval.

The director, who would hold the rank of assistant fire chief, would oversee medical training and emergency–care policies, including coordinating with area hospital emergency rooms. The bill would give the director the authority to order hospital emergency rooms to stay open to transports, with the intent that it would help reduce long ambulance wait times.

The Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, which Mendelson chairs, has scheduled a hearing over the bill today.

But Kenneth Lyons, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3721, said he will testify that the bill is “intrusive” and “takes away a hospital’s ability to manage itself.”

“I don’t think that creates the partnership that we need to move EMS forward in our health care infrastructure,” Lyons said. He considers over–accountability another major concern.

“If [the medical director] is appointed by the mayor, why is he accountable to the fire chief?” he asked. But Mendelson has said EMS reform is necessary to provide better care for patients across the District.

“EMS needs to be more medically driven,” Mendelson said in a statement Wednesday, calling the bill a “major step toward reforming the District’s EMS system.”

The bill was partly born from the response to an EMS task force assembled by Mendelson following the 2006 beating death of retired New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum, when an ambulance driver bypassed the closest hospital.

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com