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General News: Cornwall Hospital Shifts Focus, Cuts Beds
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| The new cancer treatment center will be a focus of the re-aligned St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital's Cornwall campus. |
June 04, 2009
St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital is planning to cut back the number of beds at the Cornwall campus beginning at the end of July.
Hospital spokeswoman Judi Stokes says the hospital will staff beds for 17 patients at the hospital, down from the current total of 36. Stokes says the move is necessary to avoid duplication of services in the Cornwall and Newburgh campuses of the hospital, which are five miles apart. In 2006, a New York State commission called for a re-structuring of the health care delivery system that resulted in hospital closings and consolidation to eliminate duplication of services statewide.
The move will result in the elimination of 11 jobs at the Cornwall campus. Stokes says that these are not nursing positions and she noted that the employees will likely be able to move into vacant positions at St. Luke’s Cornwall hospital in Newburgh. A new floor of the Newburgh hospital with 28 additional beds is being re-opened next month after a two-year, $8 million renovation. Stokes says that the loss of two intensive care beds in Cornwall is mitigated by the addition of beds where patients are monitored through hi-tech telemetry surveillance.
She also described a re-focus of services at the Cornwall campus, from in-patient to outpatient services. That includes the addition of a wound care center, a pain management center, and a same-day ambulatory surgery center, all of which are joint ventures between St. Luke’s Cornwall hospital and other medical care suppliers.
The new $17 million cancer care treatment center that is scheduled to open later this year in Cornwall is another example of the joint venture medical services that the hospital is making the center of its growth plans. The hospital expects the changes will give it the flexibility to focus its Cornwall campus on other clinical areas, including specialized care for cancer patients requiring hospitalization.
Stokes says that financial pressures on the hospital, including the gross receipts tax and the MTA mobility tax, are forcing the institution to re-think how it provides services to the community. “In today’s reality, the hospital needs to be fiscally stable,” she said in a phone interview. “What we used to do doesn’t work any more, it isn’t feasible anymore.”
Comments:
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I get that a hospital has to be fiscally stable. But what I don't get is how they put a $17 *million* eyesore of an addition on a beautiful architectural gem and then cut back the use of the original structure. Why not put the cancer care inside the hospital instead of tacked on the front like a wart? In 5 years they will be pissing and moaning that they have to tear down the old section and put up another brick box.
posted by Kate Benson on 06/08/09 at 9:57 PM
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