The Fire Department will ramp up its health monitoring of 14,000 firefighters and emergency medics – especially those who inhaled toxic dust and air while responding to the World Trade Center attacks.
The FDNY is expanding medical staffing to accelerate research into the conditions of its employees and to detect patterns of illnesses.
The effort includes hiring a “supervising WTC research scientist” and health-care statistician.
More doctors and nurses are expected to be brought on in the coming months with an influx of $26.8 million in federal funding.
The push comes amid growing concern of the increasing number of responders who have been stricken with respiratory diseases and cancers after sucking in pollutants while toiling at Ground Zero.
More than 600 firefighters have retired on disabilities with suspected Ground Zero-related illnesses.
And lawyers in a class-action suit against the city claim that 60 emergency responders have already died from WTC-related illnesses, and more than 300 others have cancer.
“We’ve got new money coming for the World Trade Center monitoring program.
We’ve got data. We need to analyze it,” said David Prezant, chief of the FDNY’s medical unit.
“This will help to look at the data so we can answer questions that the patients want answered,” he added.
The FDNY tells job applicants that if hired, they would monitor, evaluate and assist in the treatment of firefighters and EMS medics who were “impacted by unique exposures to WTC dust, debris, pollution and smoke.” A recent FDNY study found that rescuers who breathed toxic air at Ground Zero lost the equivalent of 12 years of lung function.
The earliest responders – those engulfed in plumes of smoke and debris when the towers fell – were the most severely affected.
The loss in lung function is “tied to sickness and death,” said co-author Gisela Banauch, a professor at Montefiore Medical Center-Einstein College in The Bronx.
Andrew Carboy, a lawyer representing firefighters, said the beefed-up medical staffing “seems like a positive step,” but stressed that actions speak louder than words. He said dozens of sick firefighters – many with respiratory illnesses believed to be triggered by working at Ground Zero – have been left in the lurch in light-duty desk jobs.
“They’re told they’re too sick to be a full-time fighters, but they haven’t been granted a disability pension.
They’re trapped,” Carboy said. “The city should get its house in order.” Many rescuers will view Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center” movie today, and health advocates will use the occasion to press the government for more aid.