In a letter to Maimonides President Brier today, the Boro-Park West Community Association (BPW) accused the Hospital of seriously neglecting its duty to provide adequate patient care.
An investigative report in yesterday’s New York Post revealed that 69% percent of Emergency Room doctors surveyed said that they had personally experienced a patient suffering harm, and 29% percent said that patients had died as a result.
“The people who run Maimonides are wasting precious resources pursuing ill-considered boondoggles, while neglecting their core mission to save lives in the Emergency Department,” said Rabbi William Handler of BPW.
“Instead of investing in a greatly expanded and improved Emergency Care Center, they waste tens of millions of dollars on building an underutilized Cancer Center that simply duplicates what is already available at the much better Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in Manhattan.
“Instead of expanding and improving their extremely busy Maternity Center, they waste money purchasing local real estate–at greatly inflated prices. Then, they have the nerve to complain that they are losing money, and that it is the fault of the Orthodox Jewish mothers of Borough Park, who are having too many babies.
“To add insult to injury, Maimonides Hospital—according to a Dartmouth University study—is one of the Nation’s most expensive hospitals.
“According to Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag, Medicare spends an average of $107,000 per patient over two years for care at Maimonides Hospital, while the world famous Mayo Clinic charges only $53,000.
“In her new book, Hospital, author Julie Salomon—who spent more than a year at Maimonides interviewing doctors, nurses, administrators, and patients—concluded:
‘The system was tainted by callous disregard for decent and equitable care, by money lust, by corporate influence, and by lack of political will.’
“There’s something terribly wrong with the management at Maimonides. They neglect their patients, waste money, antagonize the community, and overcharge everyone.
“To paraphrase a well-known Democrat Presidential nominee, ‘We need change”
[NOTE: This was written by BPW, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yeshiva World News]
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13 Responses
och un vey when you must stoop to using the NY Post as a source to prove anything.
The only way we can expect change is through our politicians. Unfortunately, our politicians are one with Maimonides and any and every other powerful person and organization. Now and then the politicians throw the masses a bone, in order to pacify them, but by and large they cater to the powerful in the community. We need a change of politicians’ approach.
Well, this was no secret to all of us, just walk in there and you will find that it needs lots of improvement (to say the least).
the post report illustrates why they have to build more
This is a serious problem that we all have experienced! The Boro-Park West Community Association (BPW) should please create a website where people can post specific problems with details of actual incidents. If the administration is incompetent they should be replaced!! If incidents are made public the administration will be embarrassed and fix it.
A few months ago my wife’s grandmother (in her 80’s) asked a nurse to help her to the bathroom… the nurse said over the intercom “I am too tired… do what you have to and we will change you in the morning”
There is no reason that hospitals only a few miles away have so much better help…. These people just don’t care!!
To: CrookedShooter(no. 4):
Build more of what?
I keep on hearing more and more people planning on having their babies delivered at other hospitals because of the poor quality being offered at Maimonidies. In addition, more and more ill people are asking the ambulance drive them to Methodist, Beth israel on Kingshighway etc. Instead of the hospital focusing on quantity and profit, they should first work on the quality and the care they are offering.
Some more ridiculous comments from “Rabbi” Handler. His tactics are a chillul hashem.
How do you meet the needs of our community without construction. Just imagine if we still had the old emergency room that Maimonides had 10 years ago. The community is growing and needs expanded services. Let’s encourage the hospital to grow rather than discourage them. We need the hospital.
TO CHAIM DOV (HIKIND?)NO. 8.
You meet the needs of the community by doing construction on the Hospital’s campus on 49th Street at Fort Hamilton Parkway, not two blocks away from the Hospital on 46th Street in the heart of the residential neighborhood.
The Emergency Room is only two stories high. You’ve got plenty of room to build.
When the politicians get their goodies, there’s no turning back. Unless the hospital were to move to the politicians’ backyard and harm THEIR quality of life.
deepthinker – I’d imagine the hospital would have to relocate elsewhere — perhaps to their newly constructed buildings in the neighborhood — in order to build out the ER upwards.
… relocate whatever they clear away to make room for a bigger ER, that is (to the new buildings they are purchasing/constructing.)
How many buildings do they need to allow for expansion of the Emergency Room? The whole neighborhood? Gimme a break.
That’s why the whole neighborhood has to disintegrate, for blocks in each direction?