MUHLENBERG

An apology is in order to the organizer's of Wednesday night's Muhlenberg Memorial vigil. I had promised to say a few words but for some unknown reason at near 6 pm I became so fatigued and could not stay awake, and had to take a nap. The net result of course was that I was not sleepy at my usual bed time.

I remember Muhlenberg as a warm personal place staffed by people that were human beings and not robots, I am sure there are a few who still remember Dave Landeau the ambulance driver and his wife Carrie who as head nurse ran the Operating Suites, or Isaac the doorman at the old colonnade main entrance who greeted everyone as a friend, or Otto the orderly who also rode the ambulance with Dave. Later on there was Jimmy the Radiology orderly who was everybody's friend. The no nonsense nursing staff at the old ER and Jackie the head Xray technician who ran her domain like an career army sergeant.but was one of the first to go help at the South Amboy munitions explosion. That was only part of the Muhlenberg family at the end of WWII. There was no change after the war except the names and faces over the many years until the demise of the hospital.

I beg forgiveness for not mentioning names but if I named one and forgot some one else that would be an injustice. All the nurses, all the aids, all the technicians that I came in contact with over 40 years genuinely cared for the patients and their families. Their work was not a job but a way of life.

Wednesday night I was going to remark that before last August 13 when the hospital had closed there had been only three times that I had experienced extreme sadness and grief. Two were of course when my parents passed away, the third was in 1944 almost at this time of the year in England .

An Army officer with more brass than brains decided that our regiment (194 Glider Infantry) should have a training flight using the British Horsa Glider instead of out CG4As. Since there were to be two separate times for the exercise and we all wanted to get it over with, we drew straws for the first group. I lost and had to wait!

A few hours later I was Gretna Green, the air field, identifying the bodies of 24 troopers and officers including several close friends. The tail had fallen off their glider while in flight. That stupid loss of life was due to a ridiculous bureaucratic decision.

One year ago, because of another uncaring politically motivated bureaucrat a fourth day of sadness was added to my list This community had lost its prime support of health care. The death of Muhlenberg was not only a blow to all who live here, but it also had personal implications for me.

For over 70 years my father and I had served patients in that hospital. Many of them we treated without any thought of compensation because it was our community obligation. My parents departed from this earth in that hospital and our four children were born there. As a three time elected president of the Medical Staff I knew that there was no other comparable hospital in this part of the country including the medical school.

I am truthful in saying that this closing was as traumatic for me as the loss of parents and my close friends in a needless accident

However there is a difference and a hope. We can and must continue to strive as a community to pressure for a quality replacement facility that can assure a return of Plainfield's ability to treat all the ill and provide a haven in an emergency.

Our tragedy was politically engineered and can be politically corrected.
If we all persevere we will succeed. Don't give up in despair.