Don't Close Hospitals

In attendence at the rally were: City Councilmember Tony Avella, speaking; Public Advocate Betsy Gautbaum; Queens Borough President Helen Marshall; Councilmembers Leroy Comrie, Elizabeth Crowley, Eric Gioia, John Liu, Diane Reyna, Helen Sears, David Weprin and Thomas White Jr.; Dr. James Satterfield, M.D., Vice- Chairman of Surgery for St. John's Queens Hospital; Ms. Billy Lee Whelan, Teamsters Joint Council; and Dr. Barry Liebowitz, President of the Doctors Council. Hundreds of people, including City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. and Assemblymember Mike Den Dekker and Alfonso Quiroz, a candidate for the 25th City Council District seat, turned out along Queens Boulevard January 24 to protest the expected closures of St. John's Queens Hospital and Mary Immaculate Hospital. "We need to make sure that we preserve access to health care and that neighborhoods are not disproportionately affected when facilities close," Quiroz said.

Thompson, Den Dekker and Quiroz were not the first public officials and candidates for office to express concern at the imminent closing of the hospitals. "Today, I regret to inform you that I am extremely concerned about Saint John's Queens and Mary Immaculate Hospitals," Borough President Helen Marshall said in her State of the Borough Address on January 13. "The news is not good- -both hospitals are on the verge of closure. They are considering filing for bankruptcy at the end of the month." Only hours before her speech, Marshall had learned from officials at Caritas Healthcare, which runs the two hospitals, that St. John's and Mary Immaculate could file for bankruptcy this month and could close by next month. She decided to mention the hospitals in her speech just hours before delivering it.

Mary Immaculate Hospital and St. John's Queens Hospital combine to provide more than 452 beds in an underserved area of New York City and employ some 3,000 people. St. John's, in Elmhurst, tends to be less in the news than Mary Immaculate, the trauma center of which is a frequent destination for gunshot victims and other individuals in its catchment area who sustain severe injuries.

The two institutions have been in precarious financial straits since at least 2005. New York state has extended a total of $44 million in loans and grants to St. Johns Hospital Queens and Mary Immaculate Hospital in the course of the last two years, none of which were intended as permanent sources of funding, according to a spokesperson from the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The spokesperson added that neither institution had as yet filed loan applications with the department this year.

St. John's Queens Hospital, at 90-02 Queens Blvd., Elmhurst, has been serving the communities of Elmhurst, Forest Hills, Jackson Heights and West and Southwest Queens for more than a century. Of its 227 beds, 10 are allocated for coronary care, 10 for intensive care, 30 for maternity cases and 177 for medical-surgical patients.

Mary Immaculate Hospital, 152-11 89th Ave., Jamaica, offers services and discounts to financially eligible residents of The Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Queens and Richmond Counties. Of its 189 beds, 19 are allotted for alcohol detoxification, seven for coronary care, 11 for intensive care, 128 for medical and surgical patients and 24 for patients with psychiatric or mental disorders.