Barely 24 hours after Gov. Paterson announced a $9.4 million plan to keep part of St. Vincent’s Hospital operating, serious questions about the scheme arose, underscoring the obvious:
Best to turn out St. Vincent’s lights.
Yes, the 160-year-old hospital has been Greenwich Village’s primary health-care facility, particularly for low-income residents. Losing St. Vincent’s will mean substantial inconvenience for many.
But St. Vincent’s has struggled for years to keep its head above water.
It is burdened with more than $1 billion in debt — a load that is accumulating by between $1 million and $2 million every week.
Community opposition to any form of a shutdown is strong — which is ironic, given that community opposition killed at least two bailout schemes.
As the hospital prepares to close down its emergency room tomorrow, Paterson is proposing that Lenox Hill Hospital temporarily operate a 24/7 “urgent-care facility” at St. Vincent’s until a permanent location can be found.
But doctors at St. Vincent’s say the idea is an ill-planned sop to local pols who demand that St. Vincent’s be saved.
Despite its name, an “urgent-care facility” handles only low-threshold injuries and illnesses; more serious problems would have to be transported by ambulance to other hospitals.
Which raises another serious health issue: Many more seriously ill patients, like those suffering heart attacks, may lose critically important treatment time by going to the urgent-care facility rather than a genuine emergency room.
Said Dr. Charles Carpati, chief of intensive care at St. Vincent’s: “It seems like they were trying to have a speedy political resolution that sounded good but was not the result of any study or the voice of the community or physicians.”
Then there’s the financial issue: Use of St. Vincent’s property would have to be approved by the bankruptcy court — not at all a sure thing.
Not to mention that the state grant covers only two years of a five-year contract — and, like St. Vincent’s, Lenox Hill also has been struggling for cash.
Which gets us to the fundamental point: There are too many hospitals in New York City — and the competition is sapping the financial integrity of all of them.
Back in 2006, the Berger Commission, after a lengthy study of New York’s medical needs — and its glut of hospital beds — recommended a relatively modest solution involving several closures, mergers and downsizings.
Predictably, those recommendations were largely ignored. Four years later, few of the necessary changes have been implemented.
Accepting the reality of spiraling medical costs and unused facilities might have averted situations like St. Vincent’s — if not there, then certainly elsewhere.
But when political interests hold sway, the result is inevitable.
The prudent thing now for all concerned is to shutter all of St. Vincent’s and be done with it — before it drags Lenox Hill down with it.