NYSDOH: Queens short of hospital beds before 3 hospitals closed

"The New York State Department of Health has prepared a report that has the conclusion that all considered obvious: Queens County did not have a sufficient number of beds before Parkway and the Caritas hospitals closed and Queens County is in urgent need of additional beds as soon as possible.

The report notes that Queens currently has 27% of New York City’s population. Its population density is greatest in the area of Elmhurst-Astoria, extending east toward Flushing and southeast toward Jamaica. The population is expected to increase by 4-8% over the next decade.

In 2007, before the closing of the three hospitals in Queens (Parkway, St. John’s and Mary Immaculate), there were 193 licensed beds per 100,000 population, compared to 251 per 100,000 population in Brooklyn. Applying age-specific ’04-’06 admission rates the NYS Department of Health estimates that the number of inpatient admissions by Queens residents will increase by at least 3% to as great as 10% by the year 2015, a mere six years away. One must bear in mind, that if plans were implemented to erect a new hospital today, it would still take a minimum of five years from today to build a single hospital at a cost of more than 1.2 million dollars per bed.

During the period 2006-2008, emergency room visits grew by 6%, admissions by 14%, and the admission rate by 8%.

The report notes that Parkway and the Caritas hospitals that have closed served about 8% of Queens medical-surgical patients in 2007. The Department of Health says that these closings require a “restructuring” of the healthcare system in the borough to “accommodate” the patients who would have used these facilities.

In the end, the Department of Health concludes that there is a need for an additional 535-835 inpatient beds in Queens by 2015, beyond those remaining after the hospital closings. Even if recommendations for reducing average length of stay and reducing preventable hospitalizations were implemented and realized, 210 to 510 new beds would still be needed. There are 160 new beds anticipated in previously planned expansions, which may or may not occur in the current fiscal climate. Thus, under the most optimistic outlook, Queens would remain short of 50-350 beds necessary to meet the 2015 projections. This shortage of beds is remedied by the reopening of Parkway’s 251 beds.

This report only goes only to 2008 and It is clear the patients that are admitted are sicker, there are increasing admissions, but the report fails to take into account that where are the over 18,000 admissions from St. John's, Mary Immaculate and Parkway. Where are they going and where are they now? And, ask what is happening with the doctors in practice; how are they being effected, with sicker patients, more admissions, less access to care.

And, none of this addresses the criminal fraud of disgraced Assemblyman Anthony Seminario, Medisys CEO David Rosen (Jamaica Hospital-who bribed Seminario), members of the DOH who acted with Seminario and Rosen, the Berger Commission numbers; to drive Parkway out of business, close hospitals, put the health and well being of Queens citizens at risk. All of this combined with the statistical analysis is shocking to the conscious of the good people of the State of New York. Where is DOH? One must ask, "How has the DOH done their health care planning models for the last years"? Why does DOH remain absent and in hiding? What guilt do they hold?

Read the DOH's own admission of guilt at their own link." - anonymous