“Were there [to be a] serious accident in this borough, the hospitals have no capacity, and that’s scary.”
This is the concern that haunts Stephen S. Mills, President and CEO New York Hospital Queens (NYHQ), following the closure on February 28 of St. John’s Queens and Mary Immaculate Hospitals, which had been operated by Caritas Health Care, Inc.
In the wake of the shut downs, Mills told The Courier that NYHQ, which had been seeing 100,000 patients annually through the ER, now sees an additional 120 to 140 per week, the majority of these being children and adolescents.
In February and March, he said, there was a “significant uptick in ER visits.”
There has also been a “groundswell” of baby deliveries.
Terry Lynam, spokesperson for North Shore-Long Island Jewish, said that during the week of March 16, Forest Hills Hospital was at an all-time high regarding in-patient volume since being taken over by North Shore-LIJ. With 272 in-patients, the facility was operating at 117 percent capacity.
“Every square foot of available non-clinical space has been converted into clinical space,” Lynam said.
Emergency room visits were up 30 percent since the closure, too, according to Lynam, who noted that 61 former staff from St. John’s and Mary Immaculate have been hired. Most of these are nurses or patient care associates.
And at Jamaica Hospital, said Michael Hinck, MediSys spokesperson, the patient average had been slightly over 300 per day. Now it is in the high 300s.
Just last week, Jamaica added 10 stretchers in what used to be non-clinical space. They are also putting in 40 additional medical/surgical beds.
Mills told The Courier that NYHQ did not receive any money when, on February 17 State Department of Health (DOH) Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D. announced $18 million in grants to other facilities to ensure continuity of health care and to help in job placement.
The NYHQ President was up in Albany on Friday, March 27 to lobby the DOH for additional funding for the emergency department and for 42 ICU beds, currently operating at 95 percent.
“We’re not getting the traction we need for funding,” said Mills, who is afraid of more layoffs with the new budget.
The hospital is in the process of expanding, but cannot complete parts of the project due to a lack of funds. They too have hired an additional 50 people.
Mount Sinai Hospital Queens in Long Island City, in the meantime, is already set to receive up to $1 million to offset the costs of treating additional patients.
Despite everything, however, hospital administrators in Queens say that the quality of patient care “has not suffered as a result of an increase in volume.”
But, warns Mills, “It’s not a good situation for 2.5 million people to have two hospitals close when we were under bedded to begin with. It keeps me up at nights.”
