Bye Bye, Jobs
Nov 29th, 2006 at 8:57 am by Susie
This is something that will have an enormous economic ripple effect in these communities:
A long-awaited plan to shrink New York State’s hospital industry landed yesterday with force, with proposals that could effectively eliminate 20 or more hospitals and thousands of jobs, and make dozens of other hospitals shrink, merge or take on new roles.
The recommendations by the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century go far beyond the nine hospital closings and downsizings that state officials reported late Monday, after being briefed by the commission. Several other hospitals would cease to exist through mergers or conversion to new uses, and more could be eliminated if they refuse to merge.
While I can not make judgement on the why and wherefore of the proposed closures and changes in the hospitals in particular regard to NYC (although I do not agree with it in general), having been in the medical world for 25 years, I do know that it is a feast or famane in patient census, usually in the ER, general medicine and surgical wards. Throw in the possiblity of flue epidemics and alike, and one really needs walk this path very very carefully.
that’s a really mind blowing story. i read the related articles too, and was interested to learn that 1 in 3 workers in the bronx are in healthcare.
so they’re projecting maybe 14,000 jobs will be lost but they’re gonna be guaranteed new jobs w/in 6 months? hahahahahaha.
also seems kinda odd to me that a committee can force private businesses to close like that. is there some precedent for that?
another thing that really concerns me is the loss of quality healthcare for women, mainly in the reproductive health arena. when i lived in ny state, a bunch of hospitals were taken over by catholic hospitals. many women in rural areas were then forced to travel crazy distances for abortions and contraceptive clinics.
seems like maybe they don’t need so many beds, but still need the er’s and labs and such…
i predict that if this goes through they’ll tear down a bunch of hospitals and then in a few years they will start building new ones when they realize they need them.