Seeking State Funds To Help Flushing Hospital

Jamaica Hospital Medical Center is about to present a financial plan to the State Dormitory Authority of New York to bail out Flushing Hospital, but DASNY officials seems to have thrown cold water on the effort.
According to Claudia Hutton, a spokesperson for the State agency, Jamaica is scheduled in the next two weeks to outline details of a plan for the financial rehabilitation of the bankrupt Flushing Hospital.
"We were contacted on March 11 by Jamaica Hospital Medical Center," Hutton said. "We’re now waiting to see what the plan says."
Although DASNY would not commit itself, Hutton hinted it probably could not bail out the Hospital.
"We don’t have that kind of money," she said.
Hutton said her agency could offer limited financial help for a particular problem.
"For example," she said, "if a hospital needs funding to bring in accountants to expedite billing and speed up reimbursements, we might help.In the past, we have funded a couple of million dollars to replace windows in an institution."
Meanwhile, New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens released to The Queens Courier a cop;y of a letter to Thomas E. Guiley, managing director of policy and program development at DASNY, seeking funds for Flushing Hospital on Nov. 10, 1998.
The letter from NYHQ’s president Stephen Mills asked for "$2 million per month, for a period of new fewer than six months to offset expenses while the Medical Center works in collaboration with labor to effect a turnaround and an increase in volume at Flushing Hospital."
The appeal drew no response from DASNY, according to NYHQ spokesperson Brian Salisbury.
The NYHQ president told DASNY that "Flushing Hospital’s financial position is extremely vulnerable, deriving from consecutive years’ losses which have created deficit fund balance as well as significant balance sheet issues, including approximately $40 million in unfunded malpractice claims."
Earlier this month officials from The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) warned the Pataki Administration to expand the use of a state-controlled fund that can be tapped to aid struggling hospitals such as Flushing Hospital.
The letter also accused State officials of dragging their feet in assisting troubled hospitals and cautioned that more hospitals will be in danger of failing if the State does not act faster and more forcefully.
DASNY accused the federal officials of "playing politics" and had been monitoring its financially troubled hospitals and did not expect that any of them would default on their loans.
Hutton told the HUD officials that "there was too little money in the fund to start helping every ailing hospital pay back its debt service."
She charged that HUD is trying to insert itself into New York policy making," she said. "It’s just plain wrong."