There will be a rally outside Mary Immaculate Hospital tomorrow morning at 11am.From the Daily News:
In the midst of the frantic negotiations, the Daily News learned that Queens-based Capitol Health Management Inc. had offered $80 million last year to buy the two ailing hospitals. A company spokesman revealed the offer had recently been upped to as much as $150 million.
Capitol, which runs an outpatient facility at the old Parkway Hospital, offered to keep all three facilities open.
"We have private equity dollars to save all three hospitals," said Capitol spokesman Fred Stewart.
But Stewart said after the Borough Hall powwow, that the deal was now "off the table."
Caritas previously considered selling the two hospitals to North Shore-LIJ Health System, which hoped to build a 400-bed hospital near St. John's Queens - a proposal that relied heavily on public financing.
That plan appears to have been torpedoed by the recession, which has made public funding scarce, said North Shore spokesman Terry Lynam.
24 comments:
This is good news because the resources devoted to development (including tax breaks and vital infrastructure improvements like bike lanes and landscaping around new projects) can stay in place.
Like that infamous brownout in Astoria a few years ago, a broad swath of our boro is being hollowed out.
And the pols can point the finger anywhere - Albany, the Mayor, Washington - whatever as long as its not them. Meanwhile they noisily encourage the borough to grow and grow and grow.
The locals are happy, (emember?) so no one will cry 'stop the madness!'
The folks that are moving in don't care - its better than where they came from and the pols know that.
I disagree that this is good news; the other hospitals nearby are Elmhurst Hospital, which is a city-owned hospital -- not a great organization. I spite of the recent expansion at Elmhurst Hospital, city-owned hospitals became (in)famous for the news clip a year or two ago of a patient in the ER at Kings County Hospital dying on the floor screaming for help while people in the hospital stood around and watched. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibkBowfZ7g8 for an example of the type of care we can expect!
Forest Hills hospital is also nearby. It's member of North Shore-LIJ, but is it as good as LIJ or North Shore in Manhasset?
Umm, poster 2, I think poster number 1 is being a bit satirical or ironic ...
I guess that is something new for people that believe everything the politicans tell them and are happy... as they are getting it up the arse.
I like to see the number of hands who actually thinks that Malcolm Smith will save these hospitals......I'm sure his response behind close doors is "what have you done for me lately."
convert them into ICE detention centers!
I as previously posted there seems to be little or few solutions to this problem. I noticed today in the NY Post Anthony Wiener was touting NYC share of the not yet passed stimulus package money for the renovation of Harlem Hospital. If we could get some stimulus money to both buy STH/MIH for the city and change management to city management or provide the funding for another group like LIJ Northshore to purchase the hospitals then maybe we can keep them open otherwise I think we will see them close.
In other news, banks are getting billions of dollars in bailout money.
And $400 million of City money is being squandered on acquisition of all property in Willets Point, so that it can be redeveloped by an as-yet-publicly-unnamed developer.
This should be nixed-- withdrawn-- and those funds allocated to circumstances where they are desperately needed.
Why is no one advocating this?
Living in Western Queens I took comfort knowing that in an emergency I was reasonably close to St. John's and could possibly avoid the death camp of Mt. Sinai of Western Queens hospital (formerly known as Astoria General Hospital--and they can change the name all the want it is still a dump). Last time I unfortunately had to go there, my mom, with heart attack symptoms, had to compete for attention with young people sleeping off their drunken night out. I simply blame Bloomberg. This is now my default position.
It basically comes down to this...these two institutions are not viable and never will be. The past decade and millions have been spent on "restructuring".
St Johns gets their share of drunken patients. Its not Bloombergs or anyone elses fault unless he was out drinking with the person and escorted that individual to the hospital. Thats why ST Johns and so many other hospital lose millions of dollars. ANYONE can get treatment once they come in the door...healthcare at the expense of the institution. Healthcare is a right? What about sneakers? Should a shoe store give me free sneakers if I cant afford it? You cant expect me to walk around barefoot? I will get a cut on my foot and have to get stitches and I cant afford...oh wait...ER is free treatment...nevermind.
You can blame all of the former and current members of the board of trustees for their chronically bad decisions about who to hire to "right the hospitals" for the demise of the Caritas hospitals. They always chose out of state consultants because they knew the most when it came to New York and Queens. They, as well as the Queens Borough President & DOH , were influenced by, in some cases, ego maniacal administrators. Consultants that were smitten with themselves and who aligned themselves with a few (inept phony Wyckoff people) totally failed to stabilize the hospitals. Yes, you can thank the board members, the top of the heap, for bringing the hospitals down. The poor hospitals could have just as soon made a bon fire and burned the millions of dollars they threw away on the out of state failures who came to prey on the last of the Catholic hospitals of Queens.
Amen.......
Elmhurst Hospital is often primarily a training ground for Mt Sinai more than a community hospital and it is no substitute for Mary Immacualte or St John's since the care you get at Elmhurst depends on the medical student or resident from Sinai medical school who may or may not have an interest in your care and may or may not be properly supervised.
anonymous... closure of St. john's has something to do with poor managers like Ann Morgan, Annette Hasting and the rest of the upper and middle management which they should have been "FIRED" when Caritas took over. All these old managers who have been in the hospital for over 20-30years did not do anything to give the highest standard of care to the community...I do not understand why Annette Hasting is still working in St. John's Hospital...she should be ashmed to show her face to the 3,000 employees of the hospital knowing that she let these people to be unemployed in the coming weeks... Ann Morgan resigned...but its too late.. she did a lot of damage in the hospital by not being a good leader and tolerate lazy employees for years... Robbin Carlson should also resigned....DO NOT WAIT FOR THE EMPLOYEES TO ESCORT YOU OUT THE HOSPITAL....JUST A PIECE OF ADVICE...IN THE EVENT THAT DOH AND STATE DEPARTMENT WILL GIVE SJH A CHANCE TO OPERATE AND BE FUNDED..PLEASE ORGANIZE A NEW SET OF ADMINISTRATORS AND MANAGERS... FIRE ALL THE OLD MANAGERS, SUPERVISORS WHO ARE WORKING IN ST. JOHN'S....
Its AMAZING to think that some employees feel these institutions will remain open. They are CLOSING!!!
bad news comming tomorrow
Heard all about Mastromano being told to buy lumber, chains and locks. Also heard the board voted to file Chapter 11 (liquidation) last night.
Well the end is here folks the fat lady has sung.
No back room discussions or last minute deals. Cash your checks today because there will be no money in the account tomorrow. The filing will most likely be after 3PM today.
Pinocchio Ears Mastromano was denying the purchase of locks and chains in the morning (yesterday) and then said we are closing in the afternoon. This is why I do not go to Town Hall meetings and listen to the BS he feeds us! He is like a soap opera.
RIP, Caritas
Exactly what killed Mary Immaculate and St. John’s Queens hospitals? That was the question on many minds on Friday with the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Caritas Healthcare. A decade ago, the two hospitals were part of the Catholic Medical Centers of Brooklyn and Queens. Then they were merged into another Catholic system to form the Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers. Many people believe that merger marked the beginning of the end for St. John’s and MIH. The two hospitals never really fed patients to the mother ship in Manhattan. Worse, they quickly came to be seen as an outer-borough financial strain on SVCMC, which itself filed for bankruptcy in 2005. The court approved the sale of the two hospitals to an entity controlled by Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in May 2006. MIH and St. John’s never recovered from that move. The death certificate, if there were one, would probably cite poor governance, management and reimbursement as the causes of death.
THE TRUTH IS OUT!
We (the employees and the patients) have become political pawns. Today, management had several of our doctors escorted from St. John’s because these doctors had the courage to ask why doesn’t the Caritas board approve the sale of the organization to a group of Private Investors? These investors ask for no public dollars, they have a Business Plan and are assuming the all of the risk with their own dollars, not the tax payers. The board and management’s answered these doctors questions by calling the Police. So, much for involving us in the process! It has become clear that for what ever reason, a certain organization does not want us to survive. Talk about Corporate Greed!
We can take this in a supine position or we can start to fight back by demanding that the board and the current administration resign immediately!
What a disgrace! America...the land of NO ACCOUNTABILITY! SJQH and MIH are the latest victims.
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