NYC leaders continue campaign against proposed Rockaway hospital cuts
/
Medical staff at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway in September. Photo courtesy of St. John’s Episcopal/Facebook
By David Brand
New York City elected officials, Queens community leaders and a candidate for mayor have continued their campaign against proposed cuts to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital following a report Tuesday by the Eagle.
A healthcare consultant working with the state Department of Health has proposed slashing bed capacity and gutting services at St. John’s Episcopal, the only large medical center left in the Rockaways, in order to trim spending at the safety net hospital.
News of the proposals — including a plan to convert the 257-bed St. John’s Episcopal into a 15-bed “micro hospital” — has fueled backlash from local residents and their elected leaders.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the plan “ridiculous” and “absolutely unacceptable” Wednesday.
Mayoral candidate Maya Wiley has also seized on the issue, visiting the hospital Thursday to meet with employees represented by the 1199 SEIU labor union.
“Far Rockaway residents deserve quality healthcare, which is why there must be a community-led planning process about how we improve outcomes and services so that residents can have access to the care that they need,” Wiley said.
The visit precedes a rally outside the hospital Friday morning organized by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who represented Far Rockaway in the city council for seven years.
St. John’s Episcopal is located in Far Rockaway’s zip code 11691 which had New York City’s second-highest COVID death rate during the peak of the pandemic. At least 418 zip code residents have so far died of COVID-19 in the predominantly Black community, according to city data.
Richards criticized the 15-bed micro hospital proposal, as well as two other capacity-cutting plans put forth by the consulting firm ToneyKorf Partners in a statement Thursday.
“These insane proposals amount to a death sentence for our Rockaway communities, especially our Black and brown neighborhoods in Far Rockaway, where high-quality healthcare is already scarce,” he said. “If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we must greatly expand access to healthcare in our hardest hit, historically underserved communities — not eliminate it.”
New York state provides roughly $60 million in funding to the hospital and has urged St. John’s Episcopal management to trim up to 40 percent of their budget in recent years.
The state Department of Health said Thursday that they have not “recommended nor decided” on either of the three proposals to drastically downsize the hospital.
“The Department of Health has been working with the management of St. John’s Episcopal for several years in an effort to achieve improved health outcomes and access in the Far Rockaways,” the state Health Department said. “Contrary to published reports, the Department has not recommended nor decided on any of the recent proposals developed that would make changes at St. John’s Episcopal, and thinks it would be premature to do so without further analysis and stakeholder engagement.”
