PASCACK VALLEY & MRMC REDUX

Thank you “anonymous” for advising me as to the internet site for the ‘PASCACK VALLEY COMMUNITY NEWS” and the article you had assumed I had used as the base for my comments. I presume that the “Community News” is a weekly area publication not like the daily Bergen Record. Obviously I was oblivious to an important part of the story because a respected paper chose to omit those facts

I have reproduced the last paragraph of the Pascack Valley Community News article below so that we all have knowledge of HUMC’s plans.

Koller stated that the reopening of the full service community hospital, which will happen in phases, should be fairly rapid. “We are probably talking about 30 months to get fully operational on the hospital, once the transfer of the license… has taken place.” He said that patient rooms will have to be renovated, with the end objective being all single-patient rooms with private bathrooms. The revamping of the 120 bed community hospital, Koller said, is projected to cost HUMC an additional $60 million. (Italics mine)

I would hope that the costs of updating the rooms and facilities would not cost a prohibitive amount. The patient rooms in tghe "Main Wing" were designed to meet the minimum Federal Standards to qualify for funding. Those rooms would be ideal single patient rooms.

I find most interesting the plan for the reinvented hospital to provide what I have advocated as essential in today’s climate; only private rooms. This is a realistic evolution for what should be the standard of institutional hospital care.

In the middle ages the revolutionary “Hospitices de Beaun” founded by the Duke of Burgundy in the mid 15^th century, provided one small short bed for two patients to share. Until after WWII most American hospitals had multi-bed wards. Muhlenberg’s East Wing built, I believe, just before the Depression had six bed wards for women on the first floor and the same for men on the fourth floor. Surgical and medical patients shared the same ward. That building was not air conditioned, and in the summer the temperature on the fourth floor under a flat tar roof often was over 100. I am sure that many of the patients there felt as if they had already reached Hades.

The semi-private room was a great advancement. The private room for the privileged had existed for years, but hospital charges were based on the 2bed accommodations. There are patients that like companionship and when well enough could enjoy that type of a situation. But for the majority, there was a loss of dignity as well as privacy. Often a sick individual was saddled with an inconsiderate roommate. Too often the other person’s visitors were noisy and too numerous for the room. Most of the time the “offenders” were innocent about their impact on the other patient, but that does not mitigate the negative aspects of semi-private rooms.

With the advent of electronic monitoring there is no medical justification to prevent single bed patient rooms. Sad to say, but if Muhlenberg had accepted that concept much of its census problems would have been eliminated. Yes bigotry has played as great a role in MRMC’s problems as has ‘illegals and uninsured”.

Any plans for a revitalized reborn Muhlenberg must require private rooms only.