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QUEENS WEEKLY, APRIL 5, 2020
Demise of three Queens hospitals 11 years ago
adds to pain of borough’s coronavirus tragedies
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
More than a decade ago,
the densely packed neighborhood
of Elmhurst —
with a population of over
88,000 in a 1.1-square-mile
area — was served by two
major medical centers.
Only one of them remains
in operation today.
Elmhurst Hospital Center,
now called NYC Health
+ Hospitals/Elmhurst, is
currently inundated amid
the coronavirus epidemic
hitting the city. In recent
days, thousands have lined
up outside the medical center,
at the corner of Broadway
and Baxter Avenue,
to get tested for COVID-19.
Thousands more have been
rushed there in search of
treatment from the illness.
The situation took a
particularly grim turn
Wednesday, when it was
reported that 13 coronavirus
patients died at the
hospital in a single day.
There were additional
reports that staff is overwhelmed
by the number of
patients seeking care, and
that resources are running
low. Over the last 11 years,
Elmhurst Hospital has
been the closest and only
refuge for Elmhurst residents
in need of medical
help — but the hospital
also serves the surrounding,
dense communities of
Jackson Heights, Corona,
Woodside and beyond.
Prior to February 2009,
the Elmhurst area also had
the services of St. John’s
Queens Hospital, formerly
located at 90-02 Queens
Blvd. It was founded in 1891
by the Catholic Sisters of
St. Joseph and remained in
the hands of the Catholic
Church for most of its existence.
But financial turmoil
doomed St. John’s in 2009
along with an affiliated
hospital, Mary Immaculate
Hospital in Jamaica. The
twin closures came months
after another nearby medical
center, Parkway Hospital
in Forest Hills, also
closed its doors amid bankruptcy.
The three closures left
Elmhurst Hospital as the
primary source for emergency
care in much of western
Queens. In the decade
that followed, emergency
room visits continued to
grow.
And just when the hospital
was set to begin a long
awaited expansion of the
emergency department, the
plague of the 21st century
arrived at its doorstep.
Financial failure
Up until 2006, St. John’s
Hospital had been operated
by the St. Vincent’s Catholic
Medical Centers. Along
with serving Elmhurst, it
was also a preferred medical
destination for other
western Queens neighborhoods
including Glendale,
Maspeth, Middle Village,
Rego Park, Corona and
Forest Hills.
St. Vincent’s filed for
bankruptcy in 2006 due
to mounting debts in operating
its medical facilities.
The debts, like those
incurred by many other
medical centers nationwide,
were the result of
rising costs combined with
lack of payment from uninsured
patients, or slow reimbursement
from health
insurance companies or
government agencies for
care provided.
It was reported that
both St. John’s and Mary
Immaculate were running
operating losses of up to $4
million a month.
During its bankruptcy
proceeding, St. Vincent’s
sold St. John’s and another
hospital in Queens that it
owned — Mary Immaculate
Hospital in Jamaica
— for up to $50 million to
Wyckoff Heights Medical
Center, located on the
Brooklyn/Queens border
near Ridgewood.
Wyckoff management
created an off-shoot organization
called Caritas
Health Care to operate St.
John’s and Mary Immaculate.
Caritas had made
promises to invest capital
in updating the hospitals
so they could compete
with other medical centers
across the borough.
But Caritas soon found
itself in the same economic
trouble that St. Vincent’s
had. The outfit was unable
to restructure the massive
debt. The timing of the situation
didn’t help matters;
the economy slumped amid
the Great Recession that
hit between 2007 and 2009.
A closure crisis
On Feb. 6, 2009, Caritas
filed for bankruptcy,
and the organization announced
it intended to close
St. John’s and Mary Immaculate
in 30 days time.
The hospitals were saddled
with more than $100 million
in combined debt.
Of the debt, Caritas
owed close to $60 million to
the New York State Dormitory
Authority, which had
provided loans just to keep
them in operation.
Late in 2008, Parkway
Hospital closed doors amid
its own financial troubles.
Suddenly, Queens was on
the verge of losing three
hospitals.
That prospect raised
alarm across the borough.
Local elected officials
scrambled to avoid — or
at least deal with — the
impending loss of the combined
216 hospital beds and
1,600 hospital jobs at St.
John’s and Mary Immaculate
Hospitals.
A week later, on Feb. 13,
both St. John’s and Mary
Immaculate were ordered
not to accept any emergency
room patients, a precursor
to a hospital’s closure.
Almost immediately, that
led to a spike in patients
at other nearby hospitals
across Queens, including
Elmhurst Hospital.
The closures of St.
John’s and were ultimately
approved by the state Department
of Health, which
promised relief for other
Queens medical centers
impacted by the decision.
That included a $3.6 million
grant to the New York
City Health and Hospitals
Corporation to expand
emergency room services
and inpatient capacity at
both Elmhurst and Queens
Hospital Centers.
Months later, then-
Queens Borough President
Helen Marshall released an
“autopsy” report on the
closure of the three medical
centers. The report
outlined that even though
Caritas had been working
to pay down the debts on St.
John’s and Mary Immaculate,
the hospitals were
still getting state loans of
$6 million every two weeks
to stay alive.
“It was just too little
too late,” Marshall told the
TimesLedger at the time.
“If the economic times
weren’t so bad, I think they
would have been saved.”
More than 600 hospital
beds were lost a result of
the three hospitals’ closure,
along with vitally
needed emergency room
services that would have
proven priceless during the
coronavirus pandemic.
The fi rst pandemic
St. John’s and Mary
Immaculate closed on the
weekend of Feb. 21, 2009,
leaving Elmhurst and other
nearby hospitals to pick
up the slack.
But within weeks, before
Elmhurst Hospital
could catch up with the
new demand, they and the
rest of Queens were hit
with a pandemic — a swine
flu outbreak.
The pandemic wound
up sickening hundreds of
People wait in line to be tested for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) while wearing protective gear, outside Elmhurst Hospital
Center on March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Stefan Jeremiah