SEPTEMBER 12 op-ed Inquiring Photographer: COMPILED BY JOHANN HAMILTON What are you looking forward to this fall? I’m going on a cruise up to New England and Canada. Also, school starts, so my grandkids will be going back to school. DIANE MORA I’m looking forward to football season and running the café. LOGAN O’CONNOR I’m looking forward to the start of pro and college football season and the baseball playoffs. JEFF OSTMAN I’m looking forward to playing some soccer and also working at this café. COREY TUCKER “We’re All About You” PUBLISHER & EDITOR Victoria Schneps-Yunis ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Joshua A. Schneps EDITOR IN CHIEF Toni Cimino I’m excited for school and shopping for fall clothes. I also really like the pretty colors of fall leaves. LAUREN RAUCHBAUER I’m excited for the colder weather so I can refurbish my apartment. ALLEN MOUND LeHavre Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd. Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 Sales Fax: 718-631-3498 e-mail: [email protected] ART DIRECTOR Jennifer Decio ARTISTS Stephen Reina Nirmal Singh Ron Torina Entire Contents Copyright 2013 by the LeHavre Courier. All letters sent to LEHAVRE COURIER should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and offi ce telephone numbers, where available, as well as affi liation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Only letters with a name given will be accepted. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of LEHAVRE COURIER. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to LEHAVRE COURIER within fi ve days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. LEHAVRE COURIER assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold LEHAVRE COURIER and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to any such advertisement. L E H A V R E N E W S BOROUGH HOSPITALS ON CRITICAL LIST BY BOROUGH PRESIDENT HELEN MARSHALL This week, Holliswood Hospital plans to begin laying off almost 400 employees after failing to secure working capital fi nancing to avoid closure. Sad as this is, the announcement is just the latest in a litany of closed hospitals in Queens in recent years. In 2002, Queens had 14 acute care hospitals. Now, Holliswood follows Peninsula, St. John’s Queens, Mary Immaculate, Parkway and St. Joseph’s. From western Queens to the Rockaway peninsula, many of our borough residents are in danger of not being able to reach a nearby hospital when threatened by medical emergencies where time is critical. These closings came in a borough that was already underbedded and underserved across a wide spectrum of medical services. Six years ago, I released a report, “A Vision for a Comprehensive and Sustainable Healthcare Delivery System in Queens,” that called for new hospitals in western Queens and on the Rockaway peninsula. Yet today, hospitals continue to close their doors and the remaining ones have no ability to cope with a surge in patient census brought on by a natural disaster like Sandy or another outbreak like swine fl u, which several years ago forced Jamaica and Queens Hospital Center to set up triage areas in vehicles and tents. A recent public report showed that in 2009, healthcare spending in the U.S. averaged more than $6,800 per person, although there were wide variances among the different states. Here in Queens, our hospitals are doing the best they can as they cope on a daily basis with a smorgasbord of problems that include deep cuts in Medicaid subsidies, low insurance reimbursement rates, “right-sizing” their institutions as they work with State health offi cials to perhaps increase the number of their medical/surgical beds, or add tertiary care services, such as cardiac cath labs, cancer programs and diagnostic capabilities with new stateof the-art equipment. The problem is so severe that as your borough president, I felt compelled to provide $15 million in capital funding from my budget to purchase sophisticated medical equipment for our hospitals. This comes at a time when more and more patients use hospital emergency rooms as neighborhood doctors. At a public hearing in February, Queens Hospital Center alone had a wish list of $4.7 million in capital funding. This one hospital had more than 104, 450 Emergency Room visits from July 2011 to the end of June 2012. During the remaining months of my term as borough president, I will continue to work with our healthcare providers, the State Department of Health and Governor Andrew Cuomo in a combined effort to provide accessibility to healthcare. On the Rockaway peninsula, St. John’s Episcopal is the only acute care hospital on a stretch of New York City with limited access and thousands of vulnerable residents in nursing homes, group homes and senior citizen housing. On the upside, we have seen our remaining hospitals add new services and expand existing ones. We have seen major expansions in orthopedics and cardiac and cancer care. We have also seen the growth and development of community-based primary and Urgent Care Centers in Queens. This is driven in part by the development of Managed Long Term Care (MLTC) companies, established through the recent Medicaid redesign efforts of New York State and the full implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act in 2014. The intent and goal is to reduce overcrowding in emergency rooms and provide people with a “medical home” where they can access primary care for all members of the family. Let’s ensure a good outcome that puts our collective feet on the road to recovery. 12 LEHAVRE COURIER | SEPTEMBER 2013 | WWW.QUEENSCOURIER.COM
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