Continued Conflict of Interest at the Mehlville Fire Department

MFPD Director Bonnie Stegman continues to serve two masters and only one seems to be served well. At the last Mehlville Fire Board meeting, Deputy Chief Walk presented his concerns that St. Anthony's Medical Center was using our ambulances as medical taxis. He complained about transferring of patients within St. Anthony's system. He has written the hospital but has not received a response. He told the board that if this continues, he thought they should be billed. The board told him to write another letter and Stegman agreed to help with the letter. Can we expect Stegman to aggressively pursue this matter when she is employed by St. Anthony's? I don't think so. She has yet to stand up for the district while St. Anthony's emergency room diverts our ambulances to other St. Louis hospitals. Stegman needs to stand up or step down.

South County has a Medical Problem Part II

These are the diversion rates for St. Anthony's Medical Center Emergency Room for the past four months. In April, they were on diversion 32% of the time due to a critical shortage of ER physicians. This means the MFPD crews are not available to respond to emergencies in our district because they have had to travel out of the area to deliver patients.

St. Anthony's Medical Center

Hours of Diversion

Nov. 2007 --April 2008

November 56.13 or 7.8 %

December 78.17 or 10.5 %

January 197.93 or 26.6 %

February 126.22 or 18.1 %

March 102.37 or 13.8 %

April 236.2 or 32 %

Looking at the metropolitan area's 24 hospitals, St. Anthony's leads by far in diverting ambulances away from their emergency room. The next highest rate for a hospital in April was SSM St Mary's which was on diversion 98.1 hours or 13.6 %.