NOW - NEW YORK STATE SUPPORT MEMO
A-01740/Uni. S-847
- Save Bellevue Woman’s Hospital,
Schenectady, New York
|
Search Site With  |
|
|
|
NOW New York State, representing over 40,000 supporters,
strongly urges the NYS Legislature and Governor Spitzer to
support A-01740/S-847.
Community hospitals are increasingly under strain to stay
afloat economically. Full mergers, joint ventures and affiliations
are often the only option to keep such hospitals up and running.
Merging or affiliating with another health organization may
seem to be a positive step in such circumstances. But this
is not necessarily true when reduced reproductive health
services are the cost of preserving these hospitals. And
this is certainly not true, if a hospital is closed, forcing
women to go to a hospital that does not have access to full
and complete healthcare services.
This year Bellevue Woman’s Hospital, founded in 1931,
is the only free standing non-profit (since 2001) hospital
in New York State and one of two in the nation that was targeted
to be closed.
Decisions to close a hospital cannot be based on inaccurate
reporting. Much of what has been reported by the Berger Commission
Report has been inaccurate. The report claimed that Bellevue’s
net deficit as of Dec 2005 was $17.6 million. It was actually
$1.3 million, a 92% error, and a difference of $16.3 million
dollars. The report also claimed that Bellevue is not a medical/surgical
hospital. In fact, physicians at Bellevue perform more than
3,000 surgeries a year. The Commission has also used FTEs
to measure the employment; it is true that Bellevue employed
approximately 275 FTEs in 2003. However, the FTE measure
does not measure the actual number of people employed. Today
Bellevue employs 444 people.
The commission counted beds, but not patients served. The
report cites 2,200 deliveries, but the reality is that Bellevue
Woman’s Hospital last year served over one hundred
and ten thousand (110,000) patients.
Regarding Bellievue’s location, the report states “In
comparison to other hospitals in Schenectady County, its
location is relatively remote.” Bellevue is located
on Route 7, the main artery connecting Schenectady and Latham,
and is 4 miles from exit 25 of the NYS Thruway. Bellevue
is located less than 3.6 miles from both Ellis and St. Clare’s
Hospitals. Bellevue’s location is far from being remote;
it is in the heart of Schenectady County on a main road.
Bellevue Woman’s Hospital is not just a Schenectady
County facility: Bellevue is a destination hospital; serving
women from 42 of the 50 states in this country and 54 of
the 62 counties in New York State.
With a full range of reproductive and family planning services,
Bellevue Woman’s Hospital has researched and created “Before
Your Baby Basics Program”. The primary beneficiaries
are high risk expectant mothers, their partners, and children.
This program was designed to save lives, especially in
stressful and unwanted pregnancies, where statistics have
shown that the leading cause of death among pregnant women
is murder.
Bellevue recognized this as an important woman’s issue
and brought it into focus. It is estimated that this program
has saved millions of dollars in New York State Medicaid
funds. The Schenectady teen pregnancy rate has been reported
to have the highest in the nation for one zip code area and
the highest per capita in the state.
Only 8% of hospitals in the United States have a digital
mammography unit. Bellevue Woman’s Hospital has 2.
Bellevue Woman’s Hospital was the first in the United
States to have a mammography unite imported from France.
They own a mobile mammography van that offers free mammographies
to underserved, low income residents or anyone in a twelve
county area. We all know that early detection saves women’s
lives, but with the mobile mammography and digital unites
they are making detection conveniently accessible, and free
to those who may otherwise lose their lives or require extensive
medical treatment if the cancer is not detected early enough.
Bellevue has the most comprehensive pelvic health center
in the Northeast. The center provides services that are not
easily talked about regarding the needs of women, from pregnancy
to menopause. In the last year alone they experienced a 128%
growth in patient utilization of the program. Mayo Clinic
and Cedar Sinai, admit that they don’t have the comprehensive
program that Bellevue offers. Nearly 70% of early admissions
in to nursing homes are due to problems urinary incontinence.
The benefits of this program were not discussed in the Berger
Report. This program saves money and keeps women in their
homes longer.
It is clear that the conclusions and recommendations by
the commission as the Berger Report relates to Bellevue Woman’s
Hospital are both deeply flawed and destructive in their
impact on the provision of high quality women’s healthcare.
We must recognize that women have special healthcare needs.
Those needs were ignored by the Berger Report and not considered
in the recommendations.
On behalf of NOW New York State and over 40,000 supporters,
we urge the NYS legislature to support the proposed legislation
(A-01470/S-847) to save women’s healthcare.
Marcia A. Pappas, President, NOW-NYS, Inc.
|
