Locals Lament Beth Israel Hospital’s Loss of Full Array of Services BY LESLEY SUSSMAN Community Board 3 (CB3) remained focused on the anxiously watched plans to downsize the historic 127year-old Beth Israel Hospital at a March 8 forum at the Sirovich Senior Center (331 E. 12th St.). The aim was to get feedback from local residents about what medical services should remain available locally. The current Gramercy hospital, which is licensed for more than 800 beds, will be replaced by a 70-bed minihospital adjoining the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mt. Sinai, at 14th St. and Second Ave., within the next four years. Once the new Mt. Sinai Downtown Beth Israel Hospital opens in 2020, the current full-squareblock hospital complex at E. 16th St. and First Ave. will eventually be sold. The forum, sponsored by CB3’s Health, Seniors, & Human Services Committee, drew a small turnout of neighbors and, surprisingly, no official hospital representatives on hand to answer residents’ questions and concerns. Committee chairperson Mae Lee said, however, that she was not concerned that hospital executives could not attend the forum. “They’re very engaging when they show up at our meetings,” she said, “but we need more time by ourselves to discuss the issues. We will communicate to them about all the concerns that are discussed tonight. It’s not the end of the story that they’re not here. The story continues. It’s just that they were tied up tonight and couldn’t make the meeting.” The evening’s forum was filled with emotional personal accounts from local residents that illustrated the importance of having a full-service hospital nearby, as opposed to the new mini-hospital, which won’t offer all services, such as delivering babies. For services the minihospital lacks, locals would be transported to other Mt. Sinai facilities, if they so choose. While the new building will have an emergency department that can handle all emergencies on site, it will transport patients with complex conditions to other Mt. Sinai facilities. The new site will also sport more than 35 operating and procedure rooms. In addition, 16 Mt. Sinai Downtown physician practice locations will be scattered throughout the area to be used by more than 600 doctors. Beth Israel Hospital has already closed its labor and delivery department. Other medical services are also being moved uptown to Mt. Sinai’s main location, at E. 99th St. According to Mt. Sinai Health System, which now owns and operates Beth Israel, along with six other hospital campuses in the New York City area, it will be four years before the existing Beth Israel completely closes, and the current hospital’s primary specialties — behavioral health and outpatient surgery services — will be expanded over that time. At the forum, Archie Jao, a physician at the Keith Cylar Community Health Center, at 743 E. Ninth St., said it was “vital” that the replacement mini-hospital offer urgent-care services on site, such as hip replacements and chronic HIV and mental health services. “We can’t have patients transferred all over the city,” he said. “Primary care and acute care must all be done at the new site.” Judith Zabokowski, an E. Ninth St. resident, said she was most concerned about senior citizens and families NYC Community Media
who always found all the services they needed nearby at Beth Israel Hospital. “It will be a challenge to have to run Uptown and elsewhere to get healthcare,” she said. “I blame Beth Israel for not taking a stand against the closing of their hospital when Mt. Sinai took them over.” Mary Cheung, director of Early Childhood Services for the Chinese American Planning Council, stressed, “It is most important to have a pediatric care program at the new Beth Israel location.” Keith Canton, of Christ Church, on E. 15th St., said he suffered a heart attack and might have died if he had not been transported so quickly to the nearby Beth Israel Hospital.
Other residents urged that the hospital’s future plans to transport patients with complex conditions to Mt. Sinai’s Uptown campus would discourage friends from regularly visiting ill patients who otherwise have no families to support them. They said it would make visiting hospitalized people an “ordeal.” Committee chairperson Lee concluded the meeting by promising residents that all the concerns and suggestions raised would be forwarded to Mount Sinai Beth Israel officials, and that the committee would use the input gathered to draft a formal CB3 resolution. “We gathered a lot of information tonight,” she said, “and at our next meeting, we will have a resolution specifically stating what residents need and want.”
March 22, 2018
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