Police Union To Offer 9/11 Follow-Up Via Health Screen Vans

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The New York Sun

Of the 34,000 New York City police officers who responded to ground zero in the days and months following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, only about a third have been screened for health problems by the city’s main World Trade Center monitoring program, according to statistics quoted by a police union.

As lawmakers consider reopening a fund to treat first-responders and others with illnesses related to the terrorist attacks that occurred six years ago today, police unions have been encouraging more of the police officers who were there to have their health checked.

As a part of that effort, the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association informed The New York Sun it is planning to send a van to visit each police precinct around the city starting next year so that police officers can be screened for illnesses without having to leave work.

“No one questioned, ‘Who is going to take care of me later on?’ When the call went out, they went,” the health and welfare secretary for the sergeant’s union, Jeremiah Leary, said of the response to the attack. “I think we’re going to see a lot of people in the next several years getting sick from this, and anything we can do to get our members tested is a positive.”

The union’s mobile screening program, which will likely be linked to the World Trade Center monitoring program at Mt. Sinai Hospital— the source for the union’s statistical claims — is the latest in a string of recent efforts to highlight how police officers were affected by the toxic dust that showered onto Lower Manhattan when the twin towers fell. In the spring, police department doctors lobbied Congress to fund a police-focused health study they are publishing this fall. Last year, the largest police union, the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, started tracking self-reported illnesses among its members out of frustration with the available programs for police.

“Unions shouldn’t have to step in to cover the city’s obligations,” PBA president Patrick Lynch said.

A spokesman for the Police Department, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, noted that police officers may see doctors on department time for any reason, “including 9/11-related complaints or concerns, without being docked time.”

He also noted that 641 officers who worked for longer periods of time at ground zero have been closely monitored by department doctors since 2002, and are due to have their five-year follow-up exams next month.

Union officials say that police officers may not always have time to seek treatment, and that the vans, which they plan to equip with X-ray machines and blood sampling equipment, will make it easier for them to get care.

“These are cops, they go to work, they put the safety of others first and foremost, and then they want to spend time with their family,” the director of project management for the sergeant’s union, Colleen Ashton, said. “We are trying to find a way to get them the heath care they need.”


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