For the folks trying to stop Greenville Hospital from closing, it’s the old Yogi Berra adage of “déjà vu all over again.”
This coming Thursday, the state Health Planning Board will once again convene a meeting to make a determination on closing the 100-bed hospital located in the southern part of Jersey City. The hospital’s owners say it can’t stay afloat financially, but neighborhood residents don’t want to lose their hospital.
Thursday’s meeting will take place in Ewing Township.
Back on Nov. 1, at a state Health Planning Board hearing in Princeton, Mayor Jerramiah Healy said the city would commit $1.5 million to keep the hospital open for another six months.
However, the board added a condition: if the city did not produce the money within 90 days, they would convene another meeting to decide whether or not to recommend closing Greenville Hospital.
In December, the City Council voted in favor of giving either a loan or grant of $1.5 million to LibertyHealth Systems to keep Greenville Hospital open for at least another six months.
But LibertyHealth Systems responded in two letters saying they weren’t interested.
One letter to the city said they could not accept the $1.5 million. The other went to the state Health Planning Board asking that they hear LibertyHealth’s application to close the hospital at an upcoming state Health Planning Board meeting.
LibertyHealth spokesperson John McKeegan also said there have been changes to Greenville Hospital since Nov. 1. He said that nearly half of the 370 employees have left the hospital and have been replaced by workers employed “per diem,” or per day, and on contract.
However, McKeegan said this change in the workforce has not impacted the service given by the hospital.
“LibertyHealth is committed to providing the same level of care that it has always provided,” McKeegan said.Making the trip
A number of city officials and residents are planning to make the trip to Thursday’s hearing.
The Nov. 1 hearing in Princeton saw over 200 people in attendance, and that same number of people are expected to travel to Ewing Township.
Among those taking the trip will be City Councilwoman Viola Richardson, one of the many officials who have worked to save the hospital from closing.
She has hoped to find potential buyers who could step forward and take Greenville Hospital off LibertyHealth’s hands.
“I think it is so important to get people out, because whatever decision [the board] makes, they need to look us in our faces and tell us,” Richardson said.
Richardson also castigated LibertyHealth for not working with the community, the city, and even the doctors at Greenville Hospital, who were willing to put up money to keep the hospital afloat.
“[LibertyHealth] refused to give the [hospital’s] financial statements and reports to the doctors who want to purchase the hospital,” Richardson said. “So, they clearly have decided they are not going to do anything to work with us.”
Richardson has also sent out an advisory to the public informing them that buses will be available for the trip to Ewing Township.
Buses are scheduled at 8 a.m. from Greenville Hospital at 1841 Kennedy Blvd., the Mary McLeod Bethune Center at 134-150 Martin Luther King Drive, and the Urban League of Hudson County at 253 Martin Luther King Drive.
For more information, call Richardson’s office at (201) 547-5361. Still sticking to their story
LibertyHealth Systems has constantly claimed they are closing the hospital due to an annual $3 million deficit from running the hospital. They also claimed a duplication of medical services offered by the Jersey City Medical Center, the other Jersey City hospital LibertyHealth operates.
Working in their favor is a recent report on improving health care in New Jersey issued by Gov. Jon Corzine’s Commission on Rationalizing Health Care Resources, which claims among its findings that “the State currently faces an oversupply of hospital beds.”
The state says that when a hospital is not needed, “closure should be allowed to happen with the State’s role limited to facilitating the process to minimize disruption to the community.”
LibertyHealth filed a Certificate of Need application in June with the state Department of Health and Human Services to close the hospital. If the board decides that the hospital should be closed, members would have their decision recommended to the state’s Health Commissioner Heather Howard, who would have the final say on whether the hospital closes or not.
McKeegan said once the decision is made by the Department of Health and Human Services, then LibertyHealth will set a time to close the hospital. LibertyHealth has said in the past if it closed Greenville Hospital, it would end all regular care in six to nine months and close the hospital’s emergency room in another 12 to 18 months. Comments on the story can be sent to rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.