__________________
CoMMuNItY uPDAtE Infections as of March 1
6,843
Infections as of Feb. 22 6,115
Nassau
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State reducing services at St. John’s? Could become a ‘micro-hospital’ ered by Medicare or Medicaid. According to hospital statistics, 90 percent of its patients have The New York State Depart- gover nment insurance, and ment of Health is s o m e h ave n o pressing St. John’s insurance. Episcopal HospiThe Health tal, in Far RockaDepartment way, to implement offered St. John’s a plan that would three options: a convert the 257reduced-capacity bed facility to a model with 91 “micro-hospital,” medical/surgery according to peobeds and no labor/ ple who are aware delivery services of the situation. or pediatrics; a Pressure to micro-hospital make such a draswith 15 medical/ tic change in opersurgery beds and ations comes after 43 beds for behavthe Health Departioral health ment forced St. patients — the John’s to make tHE REV. option the Health wide-ranging cuts Department is lAWRENCE to significantly p u s h i n g f o r, reduce the amount PRoVENzANo according to hospiof money the state Chairman, St. John’s tal officials; or a would allot to the “healthplex,” or board of directors hospital, the only behavioral health one on the Rockaoutpatient facility, way Peninsula, which also with 30 beds and further reduced serves the Five Towns. services. Any one of the options St. John’s is considered a would cut 1,000 jobs from the “safety net” hospital, because a hospital’s current workforce of majority of its patients are covContinued on page 13
By JEFFREY BESSEN jbessen@liherald.com
W
Jeffrey Bessen/Herald
Check in here, please Gural JCC Volunteer Services Manager Laurie Stone-Brofsky, left, and Cultural Arts and Education Director Rachayle Deutsch greeted those being vaccinated at the Lawrence pop-up site on Sunday. Story, additional photo, Page 3.
NCJW to present ‘The Barn’ Holocaust survivor’s tale recounted in documentary By JEFFREY BESSEN jbessen@liherald.com
Roughly a decade ago, East Rockaway resident Pnina Knopf attended a National Council of Jewish Women health forum, and one of the speakers was Dr. Elana Kastner, an obstetrician and gynecologist with a practice in Valley Stream who is affiliated with NYU Winthrop Hospital
in Mineola. “I was so impressed with her presentation that I told her when my doctor retires I wanted to come see her,” Knopf, a past NCJW-Peninsula Section president and the Jewish Life Program chairwoman for the Lawrence-based organization, said of Kastner. Five years later, Knopf became a Kastner patient. In January 2018, Knopf took
part in the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC’s Martin Luther King Day of Service program. The program’s Kindness to a Victim of Discrimination event was a lunch with a Holocaust survivor, at which Knopf joined two Lawrence High School students and a survivor named Karl Schapiro. “I discovered Karl Schapiro is Elana Kastner’s father when all Continued on page 4
e are deeply saddened and concerned by the New York State Department of Health’s push to significantly cut health care services.