Concerns over reopening hospital
The Record
Sunday, October 19, 2008
BY VINCENT FORLENZA, chairman of the board of trustees at The Valley Hospital and JAY NADEL, chairman of the board of trustees at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.
WE WOULD like to correct a number of inaccuracies that appeared in a recent article on Pascack Valley Hospital by J. Fletcher Creamer Jr. (”New Life for Pascack Valley Hospital,” Other Views, Oct. 2).
The institutions we represent, The Valley Hospital and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, have been providing quality health care to the Northern Valley communities for decades.
Since the closing of Pascack Valley Hospital last year, our hospitals have proudly provided uninterrupted medical services to the residents of the Pascack Valley. We look forward to continuing to serve those residents for many years to come.
The boards and leadership at both of our hospitals support a satellite emergency department at the former Pascack Valley Hospital site. We understand the need for community members to have urgent care close to home. In fact, our hospitals already have referral affiliations with the new emergency department.
We fervently oppose Legacy Hospital Partners’ and Hackensack University Medical Center’s unprecedented plan to open a for-profit, acute-care hospital (called Hackensack North) for one clear and compelling reason – it will destabilize health care services for Bergen County residents.
Adding the infrastructure of an under-utilized hospital raises health care costs and diminishes quality. Their plan to have a Texas-based, private-equity-financed, for-profit operation would undermine patient care in the region.
Among the inaccuracies are:
* Pascack Valley Hospital had a utilization rate of about 90 percent.
According to records submitted to the state Department of Health, since 1997, Pascack Valley Hospital’s occupancy rate has never risen above 50 percent. In 2007, its occupancy rate was less than 38 percent based on its licensed capacity of 291 beds. Creamer’s claim that PVH enjoyed an occupancy rate of nearly 90 percent is simply not true.
* An additional full-service hospital is needed in the region.
There are five full-service hospitals within a 12-mile radius of the former Pascack Valley Hospital site. These hospitals have ample capacity to serve the region for many years to come. In fact, using Department of Health data, Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Hospital reported occupancy rates of 46.8 percent and 62.2 percent respectively for the 2nd quarter of 2008.
* The plan should receive quick approval by all regulatory agencies.
Regulatory agencies, including those that have presented The Reinhardt Report, commissioned by Governor Corzine’s Commission on Rationalizing Health Care Resources, concluded that “the state currently faces an oversupply of hospital beds” and that the surplus of beds is “most pronounced in the Hackensack, Ridgewood and Paterson areas,” an area that includes the Pascack Valley. The report also states that “while not currently in financial distress, a large number of hospitals appear headed toward distress in the next few years… absent closure of some non-essential facilities.”
By all of these measures, Hackensack North should not be approved as it unequivocally contributes to over-bedding in this region and compromises the operational stability of area hospitals.
* The finances of the new hospital will be among the most sound in the nation.
The proposed hospital will be managed by a 10-month-old company from Plano, Texas, and funded with private-equity financing. This private-equity investment will be controlled by the investors and will not be directed or controlled by the local community. This situation will ultimately cost New Jerseyans.
