Public Officials, Community Members Rally 'Round LICH
About a week after Long Island College Hospital announced that it would sell off two more buildings and shutter its maternity ward, city officials (including Councilmember Bill de Blasio, above) and community folk rallied to urge Continuum Partners, LICH’s parent body, to select another strategy to pay off its $170 million of debt. The question…
About a week after Long Island College Hospital announced that it would sell off two more buildings and shutter its maternity ward, city officials (including Councilmember Bill de Blasio, above) and community folk rallied to urge Continuum Partners, LICH’s parent body, to select another strategy to pay off its $170 million of debt. The question no one seems able to answer is why they made obstetrics the victim, when child rearing is the new black here in Brooklyn, and maternity wards are closing elsewhere in the borough—Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge lost its labor and delivery unit in December because of money troubles, and Interfaith Medical Center in Bedford-Stuy lost its maternity ward in 2004. State Sen. Marty Connor made a suggestion, since many of these Brooklyn neighborhoods are growing younger. Maybe instead, they should have cut gerontology, he said.
Officials Urge LICH to Reconsider [Eagle]
LICH Selling Off More Buildings [Brownstoner]
LICH Sales: Real Estate Roguery? [Brownstoner]
Photo by William Alatriste.
dittoburg:
I’m not cynical about the figures, I’m telling you exactly how and under what circumstances they are derived and why they should not be trusted.
You are obviously of a different camp than myself and represent why civil war is imminent in this country.
Some really have no appreciation of the necessity of freedom of speech and thought in society. If you did, you would immediately disregard any data presented by a murderous, oppressive regime like that found in Cuba. The fact that you can overlook something so fundamentally contrary to a free and open society, even going so far as to label my comment (that wasn’t an argument) “juvenile”, indicates you obviously have a different value system.
I would be careful on this matter. I assure you, and history has taught us, that there are many willing to die over such “juvenile” ideals. Despite what you might think, universal health care will not work very well as a rallying cry.
Polemicist – I don’t know why you are so cynical of the figures, The quality of healthcare in Cuba is pretty consistent, the quality of healthcare in the USA ranges from the best to the worst. The same applies for the lower infant mortality rates in countries like Canada and the UK with universal healthcare. Its not surprising.
Your “go there and get arrested” argument is juvenile.
We already ration health care in this country, just not rationally. We have poor outcomes and high infant mortality in this country because many women lack consistent prenatal care. Infants die at higher rates in poor neighborhoods.
At the same time, a newborn can receive tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars worth of care in a NICU. So, the money is there somewhere.
are you willing to leave it up to politicians? It’s one thing to ration housing and food coupons- it’s another to ration health care because you are actually dealing with life and death issues. I don’t even mean endless health care- I’m referring to basic care and treatment. And in reality would you be comfortable denying health care to anyone on the basis of money. You can get into truly scary issues of who decides who lives or dies, and how they decide. What is a life worth?
I’ll be the first to admit I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around this. But lawyers, judges and politicians are not my first choice without input from ethicists and religious figures (and I NEVER thought I would ever find myself saying that). My other question is do we approach the question as a society that is based on equality (more or less) or as a capitalist society because I believe those ideas are conflicting in this instance.
MM
Why don’t you read my post again. I’m simply telling you the way things are, not the way I think they should be. I get my information on both topics from the source. I have numerous friends finishing their residencies right now and know quite a few Cubans.
Me thinks you are too easily disturbed, and seem unable to refrain from responding emotionally to objective facts.
Bxgrl:
That is a complicated question. The simplest answer is health care will have to be rationed. We simply do not have the resources to provide endless medical care to every person on this planet, let alone the US. How we decide who gets health care and who doesn’t has to be decided in the political realm through legislation. It is clear lawyers and judges cannot sort out this mess on their own.
but the real problem is how do you then deliver quality health care because people are not going to stop having babies, getting sick or dying. And as long as everything is treated strictly as a business, then even necessary things fall by the wayside because they lose money. So who’s got answers?
FinanceGuy is incorrect. Juries do award money when malpractice isn’t proven. The reality is insurance companies put a limit on the number of deliveries. Exceed that number and the preium can more than double. Most doctors fill their quota by June. OBGYN loses money and Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies don’t make up enough to cover the expenses, despite women being discharged from the hospital a day or two after delivery. Only here can the government tell an industry it can lose money. They don’t buy cars from GM less than manufacturing price but do pay hospitals less than it cost them for certain procedures. For those in business, would you keep your biggest losing component or focus on the segments that keep you afloat?
My spelling and grammar suffered greatly in my last post, which I didn’t proofread. I do know the difference between making due, and making do. We have closet allies as well as closest ones, too.
Polemicist, it is disturbing how you seem to equate a doctor choosing a medical specialty with the same cost benefit analysis as deciding between a Toyota and a Nissan. While there may be many more “easy” specialties, I’m certainly glad there are still doctors who feel that delivering babies and specializing in the care of women is a worthy profession, in spite of malpractice insurance and other “hassles”. You remain a clueless, self centered young pup.
Your knowlege of Cuba is also quite flawed. Americans are quite welcome by the Cuban government to visit Cuba, and many do so, by going there from other countries which do not have an outdated and vengeful policy towards Cuba. (ie, most of the rest of the world, including our strongest and closet allies).
I’m not saying they are the best country in the world, for a lot of reasons, but they have a lot to teach all of us in terms of making due with less, relying on natural resources and innovative, make do technology to replace more “advanced” tech, and use of holistic, herbal and common sense medicines and practices to heal and promote health. In that sense, it is not surprising that their birth mortality rate could be in better shape than ours. In spite of generations of embargos and sanctions, Cuba has managed to survive. I am no fan of Castro or his government, or communism, but I greatly admire the ingenuity of the Cuban people.