Sick 9/11 first responders could lose their jobs, despite law

When vanessa rodriguez New York firefighter spent nearly a year collecting body parts at ground zero after the 9/11 2001 terrorist attacks, never realizing the toxic dust she inhaled would give her stage three cancer .

Two decades later, the now-disabled mother of two is preparing to apply for welfare after learning the unlimited sick leave she thought she was entitled to under a 2019 state bill is not so after all. , despite what the politicians promised.

“I thought the city would take care of us. I feel left out, like, ‘Here you go. You did your job. Go outside now.’ It’s so unfair the way they’re handling things,” Rodríguez, who lost his job in May of this year, told The Post during an interview.

Rodriguez, 47, is one of half a dozen members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) who learned they would be fired for being sick for more than a year with 9/11-related injuries under the law. unlimited sick leave from the state for public workers who responded to the terrorist attack.

When the FDNY informed the workers that they would be fired if they did not return to work, many of them were in the midst of lengthy legal battles with the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS).

But applications have been denied, some repeatedly, and experts say court battles can last for years for FDNY members, leaving them stuck in a bureaucratic limbo between sick leave and retirement that ruins their lives financially.

“The population of the World Trade Center has always been viewed as a very, very esteemed group of individuals,” said Gary Smiley, the World Trade Center liaison for Local 2507, the fire inspectors and paramedics union.

“I don’t understand why you want to hurt these people more than they’ve already been hurt,” they responded to what they thought was a plane crash, but turned into a nightmare that, 21 years later, is still a nightmare.

Up to 200 EMS personnel who responded to the terrorist attacks and are still working or on temporary leave with 9/11-related injuries could also lose their jobs, Smiley said.

The unlimited sick leave law, signed into law by former Governor Andrew Cuomo on the 18th anniversary of 9/11, gave several city employees who were injured in response to the attack the same unlimited policy they had law their uniformed counterparts in the NYPD and FDNY.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes, one of the bill’s sponsors, hailed it as the end of “heartbreaking health struggles” and endless negotiations over health benefits urgently needed by first responders after developing a variety of deadly illnesses. from that moment.

The FDNY noted that it would be ridiculous to expect any public agency to pay an employee who is out of work for years indefinitely, regardless of whether the injuries are 9/11-related or not.

The agency explained that staff facing layoff have been sick for more than a year and blamed the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS) for denying workers their early retirements and forcing them into costly legal battles. , despite his career-ending disabilities.

“We have been informed that each of these members applied for a disability pension through NYCERS and was denied,” they said.

“If these members wanted to return to work, they could come back to our Office of Health Services tomorrow and start the reinstatement process and offer them a reasonable accommodation,” an FDNY spokesperson said in a statement.

“We have explored as many options as possible to keep these members on our payroll. We have made numerous attempts to prevent separation and have exhausted all of our options,” he added.

For his part, Smiley stated that “nowhere in the bill (unlimited sick leave) is it established that it is not unlimited. Nowhere does he say that, after a year, you’re fired. Otherwise, the unlimited sick leave bill would not have been called. It would have been called the One Year World Trade Center Bill.”

Tim McEnaney, who runs a law firm that specializes in three-quarters of New York’s disability pension, mentioned that EMS members see “disproportionately negative outcomes” when applying for NYCERS early retirement compared to “anywhere.” another uniformed service in the city.”

“You have to have metastatic cancer, or lose a leg or an arm, or something so irrefutably disabling that (NYCERS) would be a complete laughingstock to the world (for denying the application). Other than that, they’re denying you,” said McEnaney, whose law firm Goldberg & McEnaney represents two of the EMS members interviewed by The Post.

Rodriguez of the Bronx EMT knows that fight all too well. Since 2014, NYCERS has denied your request for early retirement six times.

In 2008, she was diagnosed with stage three angiosarcoma, and although chemotherapy and radiation later put her into remission, the cancer and the procedures she had to fight took a heavy toll on her body.

He still suffers from chronic post-mastectomy pain syndrome, a bone-softening condition called osteomalacia, peripheral neuropathy and degenerative disc disease, he said.

In 2014, the FDNY determined that he had a “permanent partial disability.”

“Functionally, he is incapable of grasping. She can’t get up. She has difficulty with pins and needles and numbness in her fingers and toes. She can’t grab the stretcher,” Dr. KJ Kelly, the FDNY’s medical director at the time, wrote in a report after Rodriguez was examined.

“He is unable to kneel or bend over and would have difficulty performing all the essential tasks of an EMT.”

Rodriguez returned to work as a dispatcher, but when office work also proved too strenuous, she took unlimited sick leave in 2019 while continuing to fight with NYCERS.

Source-larepublica.pe