Original article posted at QChron.com
A Jamaica group wants to purchase the recently closed Peninsula Hospital in Far Rockaway, revamp the facility and integrate it into a larger healthcare provider system.
If granted approval, Community Wellness Centers of America plans to work closely with the state Department of Health to reopen the hospital. Their new strategy would focus on clinical treatment of chronic illnesses and diseases, preventive screenings and educational programs.
CWCOA, led by president and founder Robert Evans, claims “it has the expertise, resources and affiliations with medical institutions, medical schools and local physicians to systematically integrate the hospital’s services into a community-wide program and provide the State of New York relief from further financial burden and loss of critically needed hospital services.”
The shuttering of Peninsula, a 173-bed, 104-year-old institution that had employed more than 1,000 people, left the community with only one hospital, St. John’s Episcopal, which began to swell with new patients.
Peninsula Hospital had been in trouble for about seven months before it was shut down with the state recently closing its clinical lab citing a long list of “serious deficiencies.”
The hospital also had financial problems. Peninsula’s parent company, MediSys, ended its affiliation with the facility last August, and the state slated it for closure, despite public outcry. Doctors and nurses even rallied outside the DOH’s Manhattan office earlier this month to try and halt the plan.
Lawmakers tried to stop the DOH from pulling Peninsula’s certificate of operation, because, they said, it would make it far easier to find another investor for the hospital, but they were unsuccessful.
Evans stated that his organization has the financial resources required to purchase the hospital and re-engineer its services and capacity despite the state’s cost constraints.