2016 NJ State PBA Mini Convention
A GIFT FROM CAPTAIN BUSCIO
NJ FMBA President
Donna Buscio
Dr. Manmohan Patel
Ed Donnelly
Consider it your annual heart-healthy checkup.
Most PBA members
have heard about A Gift
from Captain Buscio, a
program throughout the
state of New Jersey that
gives first responders the
opportunity to receive
confidential comprehensive medical evaluations
with no out-of-pocket
expense. But whether this
is your first or just the
most recent time hearing
about the program, hearing from Donna Buscio
always pulls on the heartstrings.
“My husband had a
heart attack at age 39,”
she expressed to the
membership about Jersey
City FD Captain Dominick
Buscio, who died even
after having recently
received a clean bill of
health. “I started the program just for one town – I
thought of my husband’s coworkers and I could not bear for any of them
to suffer the same loss.”
Donna explained how she was introduced to Dr. Manmohan Patel, a
member of the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners with 20 years
of experience, who created the comprehensive program in Jersey City.
“More than 50 percent of the firefighters were found to have diagnoses they weren’t aware of including 12 with Hepatitis C and a chief who
needed a quadruple bypass.”
Today, A Gift from Captain Buscio is run out of two sites: One at
Deborah Heart and Lung Center in Burlington County and another in
Newark.
“We tried to make them centrally located,” emphasized Donna,
whose son is a police officer. “I have t