Hasidic Women EMT Group Demands Ambulance License Amid Backlash

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A group of Hasidic women medics want an ambulance license they say will help them protect other women's health, but another group of Orthodox men EMTs are trying to stop them, according to records and reports.

Ezras Nashim requested permission to operate an ambulance in Borough Park and Kensington at a public hearing at Methodist Hospital Wednesday night, but were met with pushback from Hatzaloh, a volunteer emergency medical service organization, city records and reports show.

The group, founded in 2012 after Hatzaloh refused entry to female applicants, argue Hasidic women need Ezras Nashim because concerns over modesty forces them to delay seeking help, founder Rachel Freier wrote in their application to the city's Regional Emergency Medical Services Council.

"We have found that women were hesitant to call the EMTs, thus delaying their emergency until it became life-threatening," Freier said.

"However many women have raised concern that while Ezras Nashim's EMT services are appreciated, they are apprehensive to use them because, without our own ambulance, we cannot transport women to the hospital."

But a group of nearly 50 Brooklyn rabbis argue the new ambulance corps would cause potentially dangerous confusion in emergency situations.

“We have considered the modesty issue many times over the years," said Rabbi Yechiel Kaufman, one of 49 rabbis reported to oppose the license, according to the New York Post. "The associated risks of having two emergency services so disparate … far outweigh the benefits to the community.”

But letters written to Ezras Nashim from former patients, included in the group's application, show a community of women grateful for receiving care from other women.

"It was such a comfort when my vein burst on Shabbas at 3:30 in the morning to have you to depend on," one former patient wrote. "I had lost so much blood I couldn't think straight.

"The young lady you sent was calm and competent. It would have been mortifying to have had a man there changing my nightgown. Bless you."

Another woman said Ezras Nashim helped her mother when she was suffering from extreme chest pain — later diagnosed as a heart attack — but didn't want city EMTs to take her to the hospital.

"I called [Ezras Nashim] and within minutes Ruchi was at my mothers [sic] beside," the woman wrote. "She called me and confirmed and convinced my mom to go with her to the ER... Ruchi is what saved her life."

The New York's Regional Emergency Medical Services Council's decision is still pending, records show.