Editorial
Queens Needs More Hospitals, Not Less

This past March Queens Borough President Helen Marshall testified at hearings of the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century, New York City Region that Queens is "woefully underserved with hospital facilities". Yesterday her office released a report underscoring this point. Queens, according to the report, based in part on an inpatient demand analysis conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, does not have enough beds to serve the healthcare demands of Queens residents, has gaps in the healthcare services provided and has a healthcare delivery system unsustainable in its current state.

None of these problems is beyond solving, but Marshall feels, and we agree, that the Commission is taking a wrongheaded approach. Boulevard and Physicians' Hospitals closed decades ago. The closing of St. Joseph's Hospital left the borough deficient by 200 beds. Mary Immaculate Hospital, St. John's Hospital and Parkway Hospital have been in bankruptcy, although some of these are beginning to pull out of their financial quagmires. However the remaining 10 hospitals are also financially vulnerable, Marshall pointed out.

Although Queens is currently home to 2.3 million people, there exists a 1.7 beds/1,000 ratio. Manhattan, in consequence, has a population of 1.5 million and in 2004 a 7.4 beds/1,000 ratio. In 2004, Queens residents had roughly 283,000 discharges; projections indicate this number will increase by 11.1 percent by 2016. Open heart surgery, cancer services, vascular surgery and cardiology were among the top service lines seen increasing from 2004 to 2016.

The element of the population that especially rouses concern is the 440,000 lacking health insurance. Statistics indicate that people in this particular group tend to go to hospitals only when they must. They visit emergency rooms when it hurts too much or they can't stop coughing or the bleeding or itching or bruising won't go away by itself. Some of these people come from countries where communicable diseases that for years have posed no threat to the population of the United States are endemic. While the risk of transmission of these diseases to the rest of the population may be small, it is nonetheless there. Hospitals play a vital role in educating all segments of the population about preventive care and in swiftly containing and controlling an outbreak, if one should occur. There is obviously a need for more and more accessible healthcare facilities. Talk of closing any of Queens' remaining hospitals is a threat to the health and safety of the entire borough.

Hospitals are assets to the neighborhoods where they are located. Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens, for example, does more than treat the sick and injured who come through its admissions office or emergency room. Hospital administrators do their best to maintain and improve the health of the population through the hospital's many programs and presentations geared either to preventing health problems or treating and controlling them in the most efficient way possible.

Marshall is calling for another healthcare facility to be built in Western Queens, and we heartily endorse that view. A new facility could function as an addition to Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens, an expansion of the existing facility or a new facility run by Mount Sinai, but definitely not a replacement. The healthcare needs of the population are growing, and while hospitals are not and cannot be built to accommodate the total population of their catchment area at one time, eliminating beds can only increase the risk the population faces, both individually and as a whole.

Marshall's report also calls for Queens to be its own Health District. Should this come about, Queens hospitals will find it easier to obtain regulatory approval for key services. Currently, there is no clinical medical campus in Queens. With physicians more attracted to teaching facilities, the borough's hospitals-and the people they treat-will benefit from an influx of more and more qualified medical caregivers. More medical talent in the borough will result in more patients staying in Queens. Patients are currently leaving the borough for specialty services, leading to the obvious conclusion that specialty physicians should be imported to Queens, rather than patients exported out of the borough. A healthcare task force comprised of the healthcare leaders in Queens should be established to pursue this end.

Queens is the largest borough in New York City as far as land area goes, and the most diverse county in the United States. To suggest that the borough needs fewer hospitals is a canard so obvious we feel no more need be said. We add our fervent hopes that the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century will heed the recommendations outlined n the borough president's report. To play fast and loose with the future of health care in Queens in the 21st century endangers the future of the borough and all who call Queens their home.