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August 05, 2009
To the Editor:
The St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital Board of Trustees is in receipt of a letter from the town of Cornwall board dated July 9, 2009 regarding changes at the Cornwall campus. While we understand that change is difficult, we, as a volunteer-led Board of Trustees, were disturbed by the rhetoiic and mistruths surrounding the Town Board's discussion. We take this opportunity to clarify the facts and set the record straight.
St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital is a single, multi-campus, Article 28, 501(cX3) provider, with a single tax identification number. As stated in our mission statement, St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital is conimitted to providing for the diverse health care needs of the community we serve. The decisions and deliberations made by our Board are based in the context of the 250,000 residents served by our two hospital campuses and nine outpatient sites throughout Orange, Dutchess and Ulster counties.
It is the goal of the Board of Trustees to ensure that healthcare services to the communiiy sustain, and that we are responsive to rapidly changing technology and delivery of services. lt is the intention of this organization to continue providing services at both campuses. The inpatient unit at the Cornwall campus will be converted to private rooms with advanced patient monitoring capability in each of them.
Since 1931, when the Cornwall campus opened, healthcare has seen radical and dramatic changes. Those changes include technology, a shift of care from an inpatient to outpatient settings, reimbursement, significant increases in costs and a rapidly changing, diverse population. With an annual operating budget of $172 million, the Board of Trustees is responsible for the fiscal solvency of the organization.
Consider for a moment the environment in which SLCH must operate. At the federal level, there is a strong call to "reform" healthcare. New York State has mandated that many hospitals across the state must close, and has cal{ed for a reduction in the number of inpatient beds and the elimination of duplicated services. Why? Because times are changing - hospitals must adapt. Hospitals are closing for other reasons as well: bankruptcy and insolvency. That is not the case at SLCH. Rather, thanks to a progressive strategic agenda, SLCH is growing and expanding. For a context of our challenges, we've enclosed the list of hospitals which have closed in New York State over the last 19 years.
SLCH now has 122 monitored, "universal beds", not the 24 we operated in 2002. We are proud of our 300+ medical staff members (a 30% increase since 2001). This groMh provides specialists not available in our community before. We have expanded services to include pain management, wound care, enhanced cardiac services, partnered with our medical staff to expand our outpatient surgical services, as well as diagnostic imaging, and have invested $100 million in our facilities over the last eight years, with $45 million invested in our Cornwall
campus. Our most recent investment is the provision of comprehensive radiation and complementary services to cancer patients with the Cornwall campus Cancer Center opening in September. The result is an evolving trend of complimentary, not competitive, offerings from our single St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital - with two campuses 4.7 miles apart.
Sincerely,
Wilbur Higgins
Chairman, Board of Trustees
Information on Hospital Closings in New York State
Hospital County Date Closed or Converted*
Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center -Fulton
Pavilion (converted to primarily behavioral health)
Bronx Early 1990’s
Staten Island University Hospital South site/North Shore-LIJ, (converted
primarily to a behavioral health clinic - some acute care beds remain)
Richmond Early 1990’s
Medical Arts Center New York 1994
Mohawk Valley Herkimer June 1996
Julia Butterfield Putnam June 1996
Jackson Heights – Wyckoff Queens December 1996
Little Neck Queens December 1996
Leonard Hospital Rensselaer April 1997
Samaritan Medical Center – Stone Street Division Jefferson December 1997
Union Hospital (now part of St. Barnabas, now a D & T center) Bronx January 1998
Salamanca Cattaraugus July 1998
Columbus Community Healthcare Erie October 1998
Parsons Hospital (Flushing North) Queens June 1999
St. Johns Episcopal Community Hospital Suffolk June 1999
St. Mary’s Hospital Monroe November 1999
Massapequa General Hospital Inc. Nassau June 2000
Olean General Hospital Cattaraugus May 2001
Genesee Hospital (converted to a clinic) Monroe May 2001
Yonkers General (now part of St. John’s Riverside, converted to behavioral health) Westchester 2002
Seton Health System–Leonard Campus Rensselaer July 2002
Myers Community Hospital Wayne January 2003
Mary McClellan Hospital Washington May 2003
Bayley Seton Hospital (now part of Richmond University Medical Center, converted to behavioral health and outpatient services) Richmond 2003
Caledonian Campus/Brooklyn Hospital Center Kings June 2003
Island Medical Center (formerly Hempstead) Nassau July 2003
Staten Island University Hospital Concord site/North Shore-LIJ Richmond September 2003
St. Agnes Hospital Westchester October 2003
Sheehan Memorial Hospital (now a rehab/detox clinic) Erie October 2003
Brooklyn Jewish Hospital Division of Interfaith Medical Center Kings November 2003
Florence D’Urso Pavilion/Our Lady of Mercy Healthcare System Bronx January 2004
Our Lady of Victory Hospital of Lackawanna Erie June 2004
Herbert and Nell Singer Division/Beth Israel Medical Center New York August 2004
St. Joseph’s Hospital/Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers Queens October 2004
New York United Hospital Medical Center Westchester February 2005
The Hospital in Sidney Delaware August 2005
St. Mary’s Hospital (Brooklyn) Kings October 2005
Brunswick Hospital Center Suffolk May 2007
St. Vincent’s Hospital—Midtown New York September 2007
Manhattan Eye Ear and Throat Hospital (merged with Lenox Hill Hospital, now an ambulatory facility)
New York January 2008
Cabrini Medical Center New York June 2008
St. Clare’s Hospital Schenectady June 2008
Victory Memorial Hospital Kings June 2008
Parkway Hospital Queens November 2008
St. John’s Queens Hospital Queens March 2009
Mary Immaculate Hospital Queens March 2009
*In some instances, the dates reflect the date that the hospital’s operating certificate was
amended to reflect the closure vs. the actual closing date.
Comments:
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To most people, the terms "nonprofit" or "not-for-profit" imply a bare-bones operation. There are hundreds of them around here: a couple of paid staffers and a bunch of volunteers working out of a cheaply rented storefront on a shoestring budget, trying to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless or give inner-city kids an alternative to hanging out on the streets.
But not-for-profits also include organizations with multimillion-dollar budgets and executives who pull down six-figure salaries. This is especially true in the hospital and health-care fields.
Cornwall/St Lukes Allan Atzrott total compensation in 2007 was $614,365. If I'm not mistaken his total compensation for 2008 was over 700 grand. The New York Times had a great article a few years back how not-for-profit executives were paid appx. 20% higher then for profits. Something is terribly wrong there.
Pat Welch
posted by P W on 08/06/09 at 9:55 PM
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