This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

A New Hospital Needs New Stewardship: Business as Usual Blew Away with Sandy

If a hospital is to return to Long Beach, it has to be run better than it was in the past. Long Beachers lament the closing of the hospital, but given the Long Beach Medical Center’s history, it is not surprising.

The Long Beach Medical Center closed in November following devastating damage sustained through the Superstorm Sandy. The hospital reports having suffered some 56 million dollars in damage. However, when the City’s infrastructure and life returned to normal after Sandy, the hospital could not reopen. In June, the New York State Department of Health, through its Commissioner Dr. Nirav Shah, blocked plans to reopen when the LBMC Board proposed plans for a limited health facility. The Department of Health considered the Long Beach Medical Center a “bad-risk” to re-charter, pointing out that the hospital had lost an average of two million dollars a year since 2008.

It is clear that a reconstituted Long Beach Medical Center must be administered by competent and ethical stewards who act more responsibly than before. As evidenced by annual financial losses, the hospital was apparently mismanaged. The hospital, like so many other Long Beach institutions, became a source of patronage jobs—a hiring mill-- and of political brokering. The Board of Directors has been a predictable amen chorus of local erstwhile honchos and wannabees. Time caught up to the sleight of hand the hospital had been accustomed.  In a sense, they asked for the trouble they are now getting from the New York State Department of Health.

Find out what's happening in Long Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

There have been various suggestions as to what will be done with the hospital. There have been credible reports that the facility could be bought by South Nassau Communities Hospital or another large hospital corporation and reopen as an emergency room and urgent care facility. Perhaps there can be a specialization in hyperbaric care for drowning victims, given the City’s proximity to the ocean and its active seaside recreational venue.  It is supposed that the renown senior rehabilitation facility will continue. The surgery and intermediate health care component would be closed.  The Long Beach Medical Center’s surgery and intermediate care programs have frequently been subject of criticism even before the hospital’s closing in November of 2012.

The need for a hospital in Long Beach is accentuated by the City’s island identity and the degree of difficulty of an ambulance’s leaving the island for the mainland in an emergency.

Find out what's happening in Long Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Long Beachers are becoming uneasy with the uncertain future of the hospital and that Douglas Meltzer, Chief Executive Officer of the Long Beach Medical Center, and the hospital Board of Directors have been slow in informing the public of progress in rebuilding, reshaping and reopening the facility. The CEO continues to draw his same generous salary even while the hospital campus lies fallow. Even now, with all its other problems, LBMC workers are suing the hospital for back-pay demands.  No representatives from the hospital deigned to attend a community forum sponsored by civic groups at the Library on December 11.  Apparently for all the adulation blubbering for Andy Cuomo post-Sandy, the City has not been able to muster the political muscle to ask the Governor to intervene. Either that, or Cuomo wants local hospitals to fail to make way for more easy-to-control mega medical corporations.  Assemblyman Weisenberg and Senator Skelos have done nothing to change the situation. Their “promises” to support “a hospital” are couched in vagaries to suggest they would accept a “replacement” less than what the people ask and need.  Do generous campaign contributions form out-of-area medical interests skewer motivation?

Finally, there is valuable water-front property at play, whose value is a temptation to discourage full deployment of the property as a medical facility. Who would benefit from potential profit if the LBMC was sold? How would it cy pres?

I understand that Long Beach Medical Center is a private institution and can do what they want for their stakeholders. But for years, the hospital has been carried by the support of the people, and since the government has deigned to be so pro-active, I believe the matter is raw meat for public discussion. A number of civic activists and community members from all quarters have been diligent in advocating for an effective hospital plan to replace the closed Long Beach facility; great credit to them!

While a public cry comes from many quarters to have the hospital reopened, and while many point fingers at the State of New York and the Department of Health for not re-chartering the hospital, an honest assessment must necessarily demand that whatever shape the Long Beach Medical Center takes in the future must not resemble the patronage-driven and wastrel management that brought it to shaky standing in the first place.  The hospital administration and Board must no longer be given free-pass based merely on their public standing in town. Perhaps the same public outcry to reopen a hospital will lend a voice of advocacy that the new facility is run to succeed. The time for business as usual in Long Beach for its privileged institutions blew away with Sandy.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?