Rockaway’s Peninsula Hospital will close in a matter of weeks, making it the fourth Queens hospital to close in recent years.
The closure does not bode well for 100,000 residents who seek healthcare from Peninsula and the 1,000 people it employs. The hospital is forced to close its doors because of overwhelming debt; a financial crisis ensued after cuts were made to Medicare and Medicaid.
“I cannot image how St. John’s Episcopal Hospital – the only other hospital on the peninsula – will be able to handle the overcrowding in the emergency room that will take place as a result of this closing,” said Queens Borough President Helen Marshall in a statement. “We have already seen the effect on surrounding hospitals when St. John’s and Mary Immaculate hospitals closed.”
An exact date for the closure has not been set, but it could be as soon as September. With the loss of Peninsula Hospital’s 173 beds, St. John’s Episcopal Hospital will have to make accommodations for their patients. Recently, they have begun to take in transfer patients from Peninsula.
However, there are concerns that St. John’s won’t be able to accommodate all of the patients at Peninsula Hospital. The hospital also does not treat traumatic brain injuries or offer radiation oncology and hospice care like Peninsula. Peninsula handles 30,000 annual visits to the emergency room and 35,000 visits to the hospital’s family health center.
Five years ago, a report commissioned by Marshall titled “Vision for a Comprehensive and Sustainable Healthcare Delivery System” found there were not enough beds to meet the demands for Queens’s residents. The report called for a new hospital in Rockaway and a merger between Peninsula and St. John’s Episcopal Hospital.
Meetings took place in Albany to address the hospital’s growing debt problem with recommendations to merge the two existing hospitals. This would have saved hospital beds, but the plans were never carried through.
MediSys Health Network, the owner of Peninsula Hospital, will withdraw its sponsorship on Monday, August 22 at 5 p.m. MediSys will also end its provision of administrative and shared services. This was a result of the August 9 meeting in which the Peninsula Hospital Center Board voted to rescind their original letter to the New York State Department of Health that notified them of the hospital’s closure.
“MediSys will continue to work with the NYS Department of Health and all other concerned parties throughout this process,” said Michael Hinck, the director of public affairs for MediSys.
Since the closures of St. John’s in Elmhurst, Mary Immaculate in Jamaica and Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills, there has already been a strain on Jamaica Hospital Center and Queens Hospital Center in Jamaica.
“I will call on state health officials to convene an emergency meeting to explain the future of healthcare for more than 100,000 residents of the Rockaway peninsula,” said Marshall. “A medical facility must be a component of any plan for future use of the area.”
The Hospital Closure Planning Act, which was passed into law in 2010 by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest) after the closure of Mary Immaculate and St. John’s hospitals, requires the State Department of Health to hold a local public forum to determine the impact of the closure on the community.
“Hopefully, this will go a long way toward forcing the Department of Health to ensure that the people affected by Peninsula’s closure will continue to have access to essential healthcare services,” said Jane Carey, chief of staff for Lancman.
by Shannon Farrell
