Hospital Closing Bill
19
May
5/19/2008:
Do you wonder if this bill will ever come into play in Hoboken, i.e., the future of Hoboken University Medical Center?
Bill Calls for Quicker Notification on Hospital Closings
The state Department of Health and Senior Services would be required to immediately notify elected officials when a hospital in their municipality announces its intention to close, under a bill unanimously approved by the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee yesterday. The bill now heads to the full Senate for review.
“Local leaders need to be given every chance to work to keep a hospital open if it serves a major need in the community, or prepare local residents for life after closure,” said Sens. Sandra Bolden Cunningham (D-Hudson), who sponsored the bill along with Ronald L. Rice (R-Essex). “This bill gives elected leaders ample warning to work with their constituents for a health care solution that meets the needs of the neighborhood.”
She said the recent closing of Greenville Hospital in Jersey City helped spur the legislation. Overall, six hospitals in New Jersey have closed in the past 18 months and the remaining 76 are operating in a deficit, according to the New Jersey Hospital Association.
The bill, S-693, would require the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services to provide written notification to all federal, state and local elected leaders when a health system in their district files an application with the Department for a certificate of need to close a hospital.
While we’re discussing the Hoboken University Medical Center, I sure do hope they get something going here soon. Because this cesspool of grungy water is a breeding ground for MOSQUITOES. With the warmer weather coming, they’d better do something about it stat!
May 19th 2008 - 12:20:28 |
Just wondering if the refinancing is just the beginning of the city’s way of easing into telling its constituents that at some point down the road the facility must close. Seems that after floating 52million in municipal bonds to keep it open, now anticipation of budget cuts for the hospitals of NJ, can they be trying to show us that “they” are doing everything to keep it open, but in the end it will be sold?
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May 19th 2008 - 12:40:49 |
did you see that story? there is not a single hospital in NJ that is making a profit? 6 closed and 76 are losing money? yet WE have the only hospital in the entire state that is “doing fine”?? how do they do it? how can this lone facility, that bonsecors couldn’t operate or sell, be making money? the short answer is that it cannot. i hope we get recordings of someone claiming it is making money, then sue them personally for lying.
barbera, the intention from the very beginning was to leverage this hospital up, sucking money from it to pay the city’s ever growing budget, then drop some kind of BS story on the public, then toss it to a developer friend for a huge give-away of millions (see maxwell project). it really is stealing from the taxpayers. the mayor should be run out of town.
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May 19th 2008 - 12:53:50 |
Don’t forget that the mayor is also “buying votes” by keeping this money pit open. Each patient (and worker) that uses this hospital that lives in town will probably “thank” Roberts w/ a vote come election day…….
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May 19th 2008 - 13:22:08 |
And Mr 800k Holtzberg and Joanie Spokeswoman Q …big earners and big winners!!!!!
Chop!Chop!
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May 19th 2008 - 13:23:56 |
matt_72 wrote:
I’m a patient, and the mayor is not getting my vote, not without a gun held to my head in the voting machine.
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May 19th 2008 - 22:42:05 |
I though not to long ago they were bragging about being in the black> Like 10 million in the black. What happened?
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May 19th 2008 - 23:55:36 |
the mayor wants to keep the hospital and will do what ever it takes to keep it. Each patient (and worker) that uses this hospital that lives in town would appreciate Mayor Roberts and you can expect those votes coming in when he runs next year.
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May 20th 2008 - 09:41:59 |
hobokenwayword wrote:
I’m a patient, and he is getting my vote over my dead body.
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May 20th 2008 - 09:47:45 |
Journey wrote:
But more than a few patients will vote for him specifically b/c of things like his support of this money losing hospital.
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