story first appeared on apnews.com
A backup generator failed at a New York City hospital Monday night, forcing it to move out more than 200 patients, including 20 babies from neonatal intensive care.
Dozens of ambulances lined up around the block outside New York University Tisch Hospital as doctors and nurses began the slow process of evacuation. They started with the sickest and youngest. Some were on respirators operating on battery power.
NYU Medical Dean Robert Grossman told WCBS-TV said this challenging situation is the kind of thing they drill for all the time.
Much of New York was plunged into darkness by superstorm Sandy, a monstrous hybrid system that swept across a huge swath of the East.
Most of the power outages in lower Manhattan, where Tisch is located, were due to an explosion at an electrical substation, officials at Consolidated Edison said. It wasn't clear whether flooding or flying debris caused the explosion, said John Miksad, senior vice president for electric operations at Con Edison.
Without power, there are no elevators, meaning patients - some of whom are being treated for cancer and other serious illnesses - must be carefully carried down staircases, Grossman said.
As the patients were evacuated, gusts of wind blew their blankets. Nurses and staff huddled around the patients, some holding IVs and other equipment.
Ambulances came from around the city to help transport the sick. Patients will be taken to other hospitals including Mount Sinai and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer.
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
01 November 2012
14 June 2010
N.Y. Law Limits Rise in Health Insurance Rates
NY Times
Gov. David A. Paterson has signed legislation that gives the state the power to block what it deems unreasonably high New York health insurance quotes increases for millions of New Yorkers.
The new law, which covers about three million people enrolled in small-employer or individually purchased plans, requires insurance companies to apply to the state Insurance Department before they can raise premiums. The state then has 60 days to determine whether the rates are justified.
The governor and consumer advocates said the law would slow down rampant premium increases, which they said had forced many small businesses and individual policyholders to drop their insurance, driving prices higher as costs were spread over a smaller pool of customers who tended to have high health care needs. New York has the highest average premiums for individually bought policies — $6,630 for single people and $13,296 for families in 2009, more than double the national average, according to industry figures.
Advocates said that the law could become a model for other states as they monitor rates in the new insurance exchanges, or organized marketplaces, required under the federal health care overhaul.
Over the last decade, “New York H.M.O.’s made outlandish profits,” Mark P. Scherzer, an insurance lawyer and consumer advocate, said on Wednesday. “What this is really going to do is save consumers money.”
The new law also requires insurance companies to spend 82 percent of premiums on medical care, rather than on administrative costs and profits, up from 75 percent for small-business policies and 80 percent for individual ones.
The law reinstates a system of prior approval that New York phased out between 1996 and 2000. Under the system in place for a decade, New York reviewed increases retroactively and issued refunds. The insurance industry contended that giving the state prior approval over rate increases would make the process more political.
Mark L. Wagar, president of Empire BlueCross BlueShield, said the legislation addressed that concern by giving automatic approval to a proposed rate increase if the state did not act within 60 days, and by requiring the state to give an actuarial basis for denying a rate increase.
The state does not similarly regulate most New York group health insurance plans, leaving it to employers to negotiate rates, an Insurance Department spokesman said.
The new law, which covers about three million people enrolled in small-employer or individually purchased plans, requires insurance companies to apply to the state Insurance Department before they can raise premiums. The state then has 60 days to determine whether the rates are justified.
The governor and consumer advocates said the law would slow down rampant premium increases, which they said had forced many small businesses and individual policyholders to drop their insurance, driving prices higher as costs were spread over a smaller pool of customers who tended to have high health care needs. New York has the highest average premiums for individually bought policies — $6,630 for single people and $13,296 for families in 2009, more than double the national average, according to industry figures.
Advocates said that the law could become a model for other states as they monitor rates in the new insurance exchanges, or organized marketplaces, required under the federal health care overhaul.
Over the last decade, “New York H.M.O.’s made outlandish profits,” Mark P. Scherzer, an insurance lawyer and consumer advocate, said on Wednesday. “What this is really going to do is save consumers money.”
The new law also requires insurance companies to spend 82 percent of premiums on medical care, rather than on administrative costs and profits, up from 75 percent for small-business policies and 80 percent for individual ones.
The law reinstates a system of prior approval that New York phased out between 1996 and 2000. Under the system in place for a decade, New York reviewed increases retroactively and issued refunds. The insurance industry contended that giving the state prior approval over rate increases would make the process more political.
Mark L. Wagar, president of Empire BlueCross BlueShield, said the legislation addressed that concern by giving automatic approval to a proposed rate increase if the state did not act within 60 days, and by requiring the state to give an actuarial basis for denying a rate increase.
The state does not similarly regulate most New York group health insurance plans, leaving it to employers to negotiate rates, an Insurance Department spokesman said.
07 April 2010
St. Vincent’s Votes to Shut Hospital in Manhattan
NY Times
The board of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers voted on Tuesday night to close its flagship hospital in Greenwich Village, ending its long struggle to stay afloat despite millions of dollars of debt.
The exact timing for the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan, which has about 400 inpatient beds, was not immediately clear, but the process of shutting down has already begun, and the State Department of Health will become involved to ensure an orderly closing. Elective surgeries are to end by April 14.
“The decision to close St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan inpatient services was made only after the board, management and our advisers exhausted every possible alternative,” Alfred E. Smith IV, chairman of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, said in a statement. They were unable to come up with a plan, he said, “to save the inpatient services at the hospital that has proudly served Manhattan’s West Side and downtown for 160 years.”
Gov. David A. Paterson said Tuesday that he would work with the board and the Department of Health to preserve some of the hospital’s most important community functions, perhaps by scaling it down to an urgent care center that could take patients with conditions ranging from ankle sprains to heart attacks. That plan would also try to maintain some outpatient services, like those that provide H.I.V. treatment and primary care, but it remains at a conceptual stage and would require finding a partner, people close to the process said.
In the meantime, outpatient services will continue without interruption, the board said.
The hospital and a task force convened by the governor had tried without success to find another hospital to absorb or unite with St. Vincent’s.
“While we are disappointed that we were unable to find a partner for the acute care inpatient services,” the governor said in a statement, “we should use this as an opportunity to ensure that the health care needs of this community are met by creating an urgent care center combined with other vital health care services the community needs. To that end, I have directed the Department of Health to solicit proposals for this new model of care.”
With its vote, the board effectively closed the last Roman Catholic general hospital in New York, a beacon in Greenwich Village that has treated victims of calamities from the sinking of the Titanic to Sept. 11. In recent years, its management troubles were worsened by the difficult economics of the health care industry, and New York health insurance quotes, changes in the fabric of a historic neighborhood and the low profit in religious work.
The search for a partner hospital, which would be needed to maintain an urgent care center, is already under way. Mount Sinai Medical Center, which recently withdrew a bid to partner with St. Vincent’s to keep its acute care hospital open, has indicated some interest, according to an official involved in the restructuring efforts who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. Mount Sinai officials could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.
Christine Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, who represents the neighborhood, called on the governor not to approve any closing until an urgent care plan was in place.
To satisfy its creditors, the hospital may sell or lease much of its valuable Greenwich Village real estate, as it drastically reduces its staff of doctors, nurses and others, to repay its estimated $700 million of debt, people involved in the hospital’s restructuring efforts said.
St. Vincent’s now gets most of its admissions through its emergency department, which could be a natural match for an urgent care facility. But with vastly reduced services, it would no longer be a Level 1 trauma center, so patients with high-level emergencies would be routed to full-service hospitals.
An urgent care center could remain open all night, but patients could not stay more than 24 hours, and would be discharged or transferred to another hospital if they required inpatient care.
The exact timing for the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan, which has about 400 inpatient beds, was not immediately clear, but the process of shutting down has already begun, and the State Department of Health will become involved to ensure an orderly closing. Elective surgeries are to end by April 14.
“The decision to close St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan inpatient services was made only after the board, management and our advisers exhausted every possible alternative,” Alfred E. Smith IV, chairman of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, said in a statement. They were unable to come up with a plan, he said, “to save the inpatient services at the hospital that has proudly served Manhattan’s West Side and downtown for 160 years.”
Gov. David A. Paterson said Tuesday that he would work with the board and the Department of Health to preserve some of the hospital’s most important community functions, perhaps by scaling it down to an urgent care center that could take patients with conditions ranging from ankle sprains to heart attacks. That plan would also try to maintain some outpatient services, like those that provide H.I.V. treatment and primary care, but it remains at a conceptual stage and would require finding a partner, people close to the process said.
In the meantime, outpatient services will continue without interruption, the board said.
The hospital and a task force convened by the governor had tried without success to find another hospital to absorb or unite with St. Vincent’s.
“While we are disappointed that we were unable to find a partner for the acute care inpatient services,” the governor said in a statement, “we should use this as an opportunity to ensure that the health care needs of this community are met by creating an urgent care center combined with other vital health care services the community needs. To that end, I have directed the Department of Health to solicit proposals for this new model of care.”
With its vote, the board effectively closed the last Roman Catholic general hospital in New York, a beacon in Greenwich Village that has treated victims of calamities from the sinking of the Titanic to Sept. 11. In recent years, its management troubles were worsened by the difficult economics of the health care industry, and New York health insurance quotes, changes in the fabric of a historic neighborhood and the low profit in religious work.
The search for a partner hospital, which would be needed to maintain an urgent care center, is already under way. Mount Sinai Medical Center, which recently withdrew a bid to partner with St. Vincent’s to keep its acute care hospital open, has indicated some interest, according to an official involved in the restructuring efforts who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. Mount Sinai officials could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.
Christine Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, who represents the neighborhood, called on the governor not to approve any closing until an urgent care plan was in place.
To satisfy its creditors, the hospital may sell or lease much of its valuable Greenwich Village real estate, as it drastically reduces its staff of doctors, nurses and others, to repay its estimated $700 million of debt, people involved in the hospital’s restructuring efforts said.
St. Vincent’s now gets most of its admissions through its emergency department, which could be a natural match for an urgent care facility. But with vastly reduced services, it would no longer be a Level 1 trauma center, so patients with high-level emergencies would be routed to full-service hospitals.
An urgent care center could remain open all night, but patients could not stay more than 24 hours, and would be discharged or transferred to another hospital if they required inpatient care.
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