Dan's Papers - November 9, 2007

Over the years, Southampton Hospital has had its ups and downs. There are times it's so packed you have to wait for a bed. And there are other times when practically nobody goes there.

A good measure to determine how Southampton Hospital is doing is to be located to the east of it and watch the ambulances that go down Montauk Highway heading westbound.

From my perch on the second floor of the Dan's Papers offices on the Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton, I have been doing this for years. Things are okay. And in recent months, they have even picked up. This is good.

Ambulances racing down Montauk Highway come from Montauk, Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Springs and Amagansett. They hurry along. The sirens wail, the lights flash, the motorists scurry out of the way. There are back roads you can take from these communities to get to Southampton Hospital, but people don't take them. Best is the direct way. So as far as the Southampton Hospital is concerned - from the east anyway - this is it.

One measure showing how good Southampton Hospital is doing involves the speed of the ambulances. When the ambulances rush along, which they are doing now, it is a good sign. It means that good things await in Southampton. They may have lots of paramedics and oxygen and transfusion equipment on the ambulance, but things will really get better when they get to Southampton Hospital.

It has not always been like this. In some years - I've been watching this for thirty years - the ambulances dawdle along. The best care they can give to those inside, they know, is right there inside the ambulance. Southampton Hospital is ahead. But it's not so good. So the longer it takes to get there the better.

I might note that dawdling ambulances like this have not been what I've seen for years. If anyone tells you that the hospital has been going through a rough patch, have them see me. That's not what the ambulances show.

The second thing to note is the volume of the ambulances. More is better. Less is worse. During those years long ago when you didn't see a whole lot of ambulances, you knew the reason you wouldn't see many ambulances was that the people who were sick simply said no, no to Southampton Hospital, and so they were simply choppered out to New York City or to Long Island Jewish or to Stony Brook. You'd never see them on the highway.

It sure wasn't worth getting sick in those days.

Finally, there is the unmistakable fact that all these ambulances charging down the highway to the west toward the hospital these days, are almost never seen coming back.

I have a friend who says that all those that go do come back, but you don't notice it because they come back without all their sirens and lights, but I don't know. I think that when you see all these ambulances only going westbound it's because they go to Southampton and they stay in Southampton. Southampton Hospital is a terrific place. There are hundreds and thousands of ambulances from both recent and long ago trips, hanging around on the streets near the hospital taking it all in, is what I think.

I do agree that there are a few cases where you see them coming back, but when you do they always come back empty, with the paramedics back there drinking coffee and having sandwiches. So everybody they deliver gets dropped off and nobody has been turned away. It says a lot about a hospital when they have this 100% successful delivery rate, it seems to me.

Incidentally, I have some friends who live to the west of the Southampton Hospital in Hampton Bays and Westhampton Beach and they want to issue a report on what they see as far as the ambulances go. But I tell them their data is tainted. People to the west of Southampton Hospital often go to the hospital in Riverhead or Patchogue. You can't issue a true scientific study when you have a big variable like that. So forget it.

Anyway, that's it for my take on the state of Southampton Hospital. I've got my own ambulance downstairs that's just pulled up. Gotta go.