By VERONICA LEWIN
Taken from the Queens Tribune Online
Days after the State shut down Peninsula Hospital Center for failing to meet standards, some are wondering if the struggling hospital will ever make a full recovery.
“If Peninsula Hospital closes, we are in a crisis,” Councilman James Sanders Jr. (D-Laurelton) said.
The City Dept. of Health named the Rockaways as a health crisis zone, and the closing of a central hospital in a densely populated area would make it difficult for residents to get the care they need.
“It’s a death sentence,” the councilman said. “It means that people will not get to the hospital in the time that they need.”
On Feb. 23, the State Dept. of Health suspended the clinical laboratory for 30 days after the Far Rockaway hospital failed a state inspection. Since the clinical laboratory is critical to the daily operations of a hospital, the DOH ordered Peninsula to shut down and transfer current patients to other facilities. St. John’s Episcopal Hospital is the only other hospital on the peninsula. Elected officials who represent the area surrounding the hospital expressed shock over Peninsula’s lab suspension.
“Putting patient safety at risk is outrageous and unacceptable,” said Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Far Rockaway). “Our hospitals and health care facilities must be held to the highest standard to protect the health and safety of our families.”
Since September 2011, Revival Home Health Care has been running Peninsula Hospital Center. The company opened in 1994 and provides home health care service to residents in the five boroughs, Long Island and counties north of the city. Peninsula is the company’s first hospital. A spokeswoman at Revival Home Health Care declined to comment on the clinical lab suspension.
“There can be no doubt that this was a simple failure of proper oversight and careful administration,” Sanders said. He said he met with Peninsula’s Chief Operating Officer Todd Miller last week and Miller said he is working to keep the hospital open.
When the debt troubles of Peninsula Hospital Center were first diagnosed last summer, the borough braced itself for the death of yet another hospital. The summer months were filled with ups and downs, leaving residents wondering where they would go for medical care. The hospital seemed to stabilize when Revival Home Health Care took over operations in place of MediSys last fall, but now the borough waits to see if the hospital will open after the 30-day suspension.
“Even though Peninsula Hospital is critical to the provision of medical care for residents of the Rockaway Peninsula, patient safety is of paramount importance,” Borough President Helen Marshall said in a statement.
Marshall released a report in 2006 that warned Queens could face a health care shortage if the borough did not act quickly. The main finding of the report was that there are not enough hospital beds to serve the demand for health care in Queens. She said this results in people leaving the borough for specialties such as cardiology, orthopedics and cancer treatment.
The study recommended a new hospital should be put in western Queens to better serve residents. Two years after the report, New Parkway Hospital closed in November 2008, with the shuttering of St. John’s and Mary Immaculate following soon after. If Peninsula cannot survive, the borough will be left with roughly 3,600 hospital beds to serve more than 2 million people who call Queens home.
Reach Reporter Veronica Lewin at vlewin@queenspress.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 123.