The lead headline and front-page story in Sunday’s print edition of the Courier News reads, “Muhlenberg backers ready to rally.” For weeks now, I’ve been reading about how the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center is planning to close its 396-bed acute-care facility, leaving several other operations in place.
Blogger Herb Kaufman (http://cnplainfield.blogspot.com/) has had passionate posts on the topic, and the C-N has covered the matter extensively with news reports, as well as on its editorial page.
In a complex issue such as this one, there is often one person who crystallizes the issue in cogent terms, with a clarity that cannot be ignored. This time, it’s the words of Dr. Brian Fertig, a doctor associated with both Muhlenberg and its sister hospital in the Solaris Health System, the JFK Medical Center.
Quoted in the C-N, Fertig asks, “How does this happen with all the wealth in New Jersey?” Fertig’s question cuts right through to a key factor in this equation and, when he answers his own question, “This should not have happened,” he confronts us with a very uncomfortable conclusion.
It becomes rather clear – at least to me – that the health care needs of a community the size of Plainfield cannot be ignored (the 2006 census counted 47,353 people, compared to Bridgewater which came in at 44,818, and which has a nearby hospital in Somerville). Plainfield’s loss of a 396-bed facility would be a major blow. Fertig’s plaintive words need to be heard over and over again. I am not so naïve as to think that the state of New Jersey can simply write a check for Muhlenberg’s operating deficit, or that the parent company, Solaris, can indefinitely continue to absorb financial losses from Muhlenberg.
But there is something very much out-of-kilter when we U.S. citizens can observe the government in Washington spending billions of dollars for a mismanaged war with Iraq, while a local community in New Jersey is expected to lose a major health facility to the detriment of its own citizens. My mom was fond of saying, “Charity begins at home.”
Note: 1. For Sunday’s April 27, 2008, report on Muhlenberg and Shaun O’Hara’s involvement (he’s the center for the New York Giants), see http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080427/NEWS/804270385. The web site of the Solaris Health System is at http://www.solarishs.org/. 2. Although I have not analyzed any of the data associated with Muhlenberg’s predicament, I was once involved with a major business assessment of the health industry at a time when the firm which employed me was evaluating entry into this market segment.
1 comment:
Dick, It is all gone, sold to the highest bidder, jobs included. In Plainfield Scott Press, Walker Turner, International Motors, Mack Truck, Loizeaux, Plainfield Lumber,and many more. They were all good jobs. The Club Cars to the city for real wealth. Do look around, factories have become automated and/or shipped overseas. Park Avenue was doctors row with some of the finest doctors in the country. It is impossible to have the Middle Class support everybody below the Middle Class. We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. The robber barons, members of the Business Roundtable, are back. Even in the depression there was great wealth while others suffered. Keep your eyes on the market. God help us.
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