Rochdale Village Health

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.”

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ROCHDALE VILLAGE RESIDENTS WILL SOON HAVE LABORATORY SERVICES

Dr.Robert Evans, CEO/President of CWCOA recently announced that the development of easily accessible health care services within Rochdale Village will include laboratory services for residents.  This announcement was made regarding the development of much needed healthcare services in Southeast Queens which will include home services through the advancements in telemedicine. CWCOA mission in developing and providing much needed services to the community will include home laboratory services for residents unable to reach the centrally located laboratory when constructed within Rochdale Village.

Dr. Evans reported that his company is in phase II of finalizing the medical services and locations within Southeast Queens. Dr. Evans expects that the planning and coordination of required services when completed will not only elevate the health and well being of all residents, but provide a model medical healthcare service system for all residents to be proud of and envision a system that is coordinated and integrated with all aspects of  healthcare supported by CWCOA Electronic Health Record technologies.

Taken from Crainsnewyork.com (original article)

Evidence is mounting that bankrupt Peninsula Hospital may not reopen. The Queens hospital laid off another round of workers last Friday, including 100 from 1199 SEIU. Its physician-residency programs are being terminated, another sign the hospital will stay dark.

Peninsula is sending a letter to its residents, who were supposed to be trained through June 30, with notification that the program is ending because of the closure of the hospital’s laboratory on Feb. 23 in the wake of safety problems found by inspectors from the state Department of Health. The effort of the new Chapter 11 trustee in the Peninsula bankruptcy court case has been focused on correcting the lab’s deficiencies, obtaining recertification for the lab, and reopening the hospital. “Whether and when the same can be achieved is uncertain,” according to the letter. Recertification will take time, if it can be obtained, added the letter, and that lapse in training could compromise academic credit for the residency.

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Former Assemblyman Tony Seminerio was given payoffs from account

BY LORE CROGHAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS (original article)

Indicted Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Queens) pleads guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to charges of fraud and extortion in connection with pocketing $1 million in payoffs through a sham company. He faces up to twenty years in prison.
Wyckoff Heights Medical Center kept a secret bank account that a former CEO used to bribe a disgraced state assemblyman, an upstate judge said in a court decision.

Orange County Supreme Court Judge Elaine Slobod’s decision brought to light new details about the Bushwick hospital’s alleged dealings with Tony Seminerio (D-Far Rockaway), who died in a North Carolina prison last year.

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“Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”

Community Wellness Centers of America, LLC (CWCOA) is writing this letter to specifically comment on the recent announcement from “REACH” to survey certain health trends in Queens, predominately focused on Asian Americans to gather data and examine trends in that community.

REACH is the national program that serves as the cornerstone of CDC’s efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health providing valuable research in addressing many health issues throughout the country.

However, this survey scheduled for Queens examining health, lifestyle habits (such as nutrition and exercise), and focusing on exposure to lead, pesticides, and other toxins, will not have equal representation from the African-American community throughout Queens — let alone Southeast Queens, Jamaica.

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(Article from “Shift Your Life” a blog maintained by Tracy Latz, M.D. & Marion Ross Ph.D.)

According to Sir William Osler, Imhotep was the real Father of Medicine (2980 BC) –about 4,000 years ago. “The first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of antiquity,” Imhotep diagnosed and treated over 200 diseases: 15 diseases of the abdomen, 29 of the eyes, 11 of the bladder, 10 of the rectum, and 18 of the skin, hair, nails and tongue. Imhotep treated gout, tuberculosis, appendicitis, gallstones, and arthritis. In addition to performing surgery and some dentistry, Imhotep extracted medicine from plants. He knew the position and function of the vital organs and circulation of the blood system. The Encyclopedia Britannica says, “The evidence afforded by Egyptian and Greek texts support the view that Imhotep’s reputation was very respected in early times…His prestige increased with the lapse of centuries and his temples in Greek times were the centers of medical teachings.”

Imhotep was worshipped as a god and healer from approximately 2850 B.C. to 525 B.C., and as a full deity from 525 B.C. to 550 A.D. He lived during the Third Dynasty at the court of King Zoser in Egypt. Imhotep was a known scribe, chief lector, priest, architect, astronomer and magician (medicine and magic were used together in that era). For 3000 years he was worshipped as a god in Greece and Rome. Early Christians worshipped him as the “Prince of Peace.”

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March 16 (Reuters) – When hospitals are short on beds in the intensive care unit, doctors are more likely to switch from live-saving care to end-of-life care, according to a new Canadian study that looked at more than 3,000 people.

But it wasn’t clear whether that meant patients died any sooner, the researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“A lot of ICU beds in this country are filled with patients that are either too sick to benefit or too well to benefit,” said Scott Halpern, a critical care expert at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who wrote a commentary on the findings.

“The present study is interesting in that it raises the possibility that scarcity may in fact be the mother of expedited end-of-life decision-making. It’s much easier to transfer a patient to an intensive care unit whether or not they will benefit from it than it is to have a difficult discussion about the end of life.”

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CDC officials hope to interview 400 Queens residents

(original article found here)

BY LISA L. COLANGELO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was the city health commissioner in 2004, when New York became the first city in the country to get its own Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES). Frieden took the message directly to the public to help convince New Yorkers to take part in the vital survey.

Some 400 Queens residents will get a chance to be part of a major study that surveys health trends across the country.

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(original article)

ICAP at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health is part of a network of research organizations that jointly released study results finding that the HIV infection rate of black women living in certain parts of the U.S. is five times higher than overall rate of infection among black women estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The HIV Prevention Trials Network’s (HPTN) 064 Women’s HIV Seroincidence Study (ISIS) found an HIV incidence of 0.24 percent in its study cohort of 2,099 women (88 percent Black).

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Stay clear of these inflammation-causing foods to instantly upgrade your health
Taken from ‘The Conscious Life’ (original article)

According to the statistics from the World Health Organization, about 12.9 million people worldwide died from some form of cardiovascular disease in 2004. And each year, the World Cancer Research Fund estimated that some eight million people died from cancer. Heart disease and cancer, the deadly manifestation of chronic inflammation, are expected to remain as the leading causes of death in developed countries for many years to come.

But study after study shows that the risk of heart disease and cancer are modifiable by our lifestyle choices which include the food we choose to eat each day. With every bite that we take, we’re either balancing the pro- and anti-inflammatory compounds in the body, or tipping the scale to one end.

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