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HUMC President Robert Garrett told employees at the hospital the news just after 5 p.m., as the initial version of this story was being published.
“Rather than go back and forth in a protracted legal battle to try and prove there’s a need for new beds — which the Corzine Administration wanted — it’s easier to let the old license expire and apply for a new license under the [Christie] administration,” the source told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Christie campaigned 15 months ago for the reopening of PVH “from a health and safety perspective” for area residents. SEE: Christie backs reopening Pascack Valley Hospital
One of the opponents, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, has called such a move “irrational health policy,” despite the closure of three area hospitals.
HUMC is acknowledged nationwide as one of the best and most respected institutions of its kind. So its request won’t be taken lightly by anyone with the power to decide Pascack’s fate.
HUMC must first complete and submit a certificate of need application — a document that is exactly what it says it is. The state will review the petition and decide whether to move forward with offically reopening PVH.
There’s more at stake than meets the eye. HUMC would expand into an area where ambulances constantly blare through on their way to the Old Hook Road emergency room. Middle-class Westwood would get a large ratable, while boosting nearby businesses.
More importantly, area residents could be closer to home for treatments, therapy, lab work — or if they’re admitted — with all the advantages an ultra-high-tech facility such as HUMC has to offer. Demographics show the area’s population is aging dramatically.
On the flip side is a health care system vilified for glomming so much money that insuring all Americans has become a nightmare, and a battle for survival by North Jersey competitors that have more beds than people who need them — beginning with The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, all of six miles west, and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, eight miles southeast.
Detractors say each can take up to a half-hour to reach by car.
There’s no underestimating the power on the local, state and even national economy of hospitals, their employees and the people who do their contract work — among them, the doctors, lawyers, medical pros, accountants and so many others.
However, the former 291-bed hospital on Old Hook Road in Westwood ran up $80 million in new debt after it completed a four-story addition in 2005. Combined with years of operating losses, it prompted the owner, Well Care Group, to agree on a memorandum of understanding with HUMC four years ago.
But the arrangement fell through and the hospital filed for Chapter 11 in September 2007. Two months later, the hospital ceased medical care. A thousand people lost their jobs. In the Pascack Valley region, that’s basically the equivalent of an automotive plant shutdown.
HUMC later acquired the hospital’s certificate of need for mobile intensive care in a federal bankruptcy auction and began providing paramedic services to 18 towns in the Pascack and Northern valleys from the facility.
The hospital’s history took several more turns. Then, on Oct. 1, 2008, HUMC opened a round-the-clock emergency room at the hospital: Hackensack University Medical Center North at Pascack Valley. Anyone who requires admission of more than 12 hours of observation, however, is taken to HUMC’s primary facility in Hackensack.
HUMC applied to expand the PVH site to a full-service hospital. But state officials at the time required proof of need, so HUMC withdrew its request for renewal of the old license.
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