Hospital Closing

[Richard B the EMT]

Peninsula Hospital Center, Far Rockaway (Queens County, NYC, NY) is apparently going to be closed. It is one of 2 hospitals on the Rockaway Peninsula, in an area of roughly 100,000 people over an 11 mile by 1 mile at the widest point stretch. We seem to be in a situation, exclusive of the financial one, where 2 hospitals is usually not enough for either, but too much for one. This falls in my usual comment that MOST calls are roughly 15 minutes from an ER, but the next nearest hospitals to Peninsula (exclusive of St. John's Episcopal, 5 minutes from PHC), are easily a half hour travel time. PHC has a heli-pad on the grounds, St. John's does not.

Also to be taken into account, the Rockaway Peninsula communities are only accessible by 3 bridges, one into "inland" Queens County, one into Brooklyn (Kings County), and the 3rd into Atlantic Beach, Nassau County, and only 2 other heavily traveled "main" roadways, which jam up during normal rush hours. All the roadways, and the bridge connecting roadways, have been known to flood out during lunar flood tides, especially during storms (all our coastal evacuation routes are subject to this flooding, unfortunately). If all calls go to St. John's, ER turnaround times are going to increase drastically, and locally assigned ambulances are subject to temporary redeployment when inland, or in Brooklyn. Currently, the area has 4 FDNY BLS and 2 ALS ambulances, 5 VFD BLS ambulances, and possibly an upcoming VAC unit.

Please read the article link, then comment here. Thanks.

http://www.queenscou...0d578026783.txt

Forgot to mention, St John's also gets patients in from nearby Nassau County, as they are situated a bit more than a mile from the Nassau County border. Nassau County PD and community VFD ambulances will also be affected in the turnaround times.Also, IFT services bring in patients, too.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Richard B the EMT

[Just Plain Ruff]

Anytime a hospital closes is a bad thing for the community. Eventually you won't even notice that this or that hospital closed. This happened in KC MO when Trinity Lutheran hospital closed it's doors. The community outrage was huge but in the end the hospital closed.

We in the ambulance biz, were dismayed that one of our favorite ER's was closing but you know what, over the following year it was like Trinity never existed. Transport times were indeed a little longer but you move on and deal with it.

I have a feelign that will be what happens with Penninsula but I could be wrong. Sure your transport times and turnaround times will take longer but after a year or two it will even itself out and I'll bet in that time period you will look back and say, this really wasn't a bad idea.

Patients will still get the care they need, You will still provide the best care you can but in a longer time frame and like I said, sometime in the future you will look back and say "It really didn't make a huge difference in the long run"

I worked in a county with one hospital that covered about 45000 people. Our hospital was also the closest hospital to another county with 25000 people and the surrounding areas and counties we said that our patient base was nearly 100K. Transport times were 5 minutes in the town the hospital was located at, all the way to an hour if we were way out in the county or even into the other county. We worked with two ambulances to cover that area. Our call volume was about 12 calls a day over 2 shifts. Not that busy. But we dealt with 1 hospital and I'm betting that after a while, you'll be doing fine with one hospital also.