By Ivan Pereira
A tentative agreement has been reached to save Peninsula Hospital from becoming the fourth hospital to face the chopping block in Queens and the Rockaway medical center has been restoring its services.
Peninsula and the Brooklyn-based Revival Home Health Care network have worked out an agreement to allow Revival to take over the operations of the hospital, administrators for Peninsula announced. Two weeks ago, MediSys, Peninsula’s former parent company, ended its ownership of the medical center after it was revealed that it owed $13 million in debt to its investors.
A doctor and two vendors who were owed more than $120,000 by Peninsula filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition Aug. 16.
As part of the agreement with Revival, Todd Miller was named the chief restructuring officer and he said he has begun work to bring operations to full service. Miller is the chief operating officer for Revival.
“We know the staff at the hospital center shares Revival’s values of providing quality health care for the community and we look forward to being able to continue outstanding work already being done at the hospital,” Miller said in a statement.
Peninsula announced that it has ended its two-week diversion ?of ambulances to its emergency room.
A representative from Revival declined to comment about the deal because it had not been finalized as Tuesday, despite claims by Peninsula that it has received support from the state Department of Health and the United Healthcare Workers. The state Health Department did not return phone calls for comment.
Rabbi Jacob Spitzer, a Holocaust survivor, created Revival in 1994 to bring quality health care to the elder Jewish population in New York City. Over the years, it has expanded and offers many health services to hundreds of patients of all backgrounds for conditions, including terminal illness care, stroke, cancer and Parkinson’s disease management, as well as home health aide programs.
The fate of the 104-year-old hospital frightened many Rockaway residents and elected officials who feared that it would leave residents with only one hospital — St. John’s Episcopal — and exacerbate the health care problems for Queens.
In 2008, Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills was shut down by the state and a year later St. John’s Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica were closed after their parent company declared bankruptcy.
State Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-St. Albans) has called on the attorney general to investigate how Peninsula got into the debt problem so quickly.
Borough President Helen Marshall, who has been fighting for years to keep the borough’s hospitals from being shut down, said she was relieved that the hospital reached a late deal because its loss would create a void that would be too risky for patients.
“As Hurricane Irene — and the earthquake before it — have shown us, anything can happen anytime. The last time a hospital closed in Queens, swine flu visited,” she said in a statement.
Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4546.
