RARITAN VALLEY HOSPITAL SAGA

Politically quiet weekend in Plainfield, although New York State and Washington's manipulations with Health Care would provide material to write a post,I have decided to watch basketball. However, I resurrected portion of a chapter from my "Maturity" volume that is of interest with the demise of Muhlenberg.

Simultaneously with the development of a new hospital in Edison, J.F. Kennedy, the previously privately owned Bound Brook Hospital became too antiquated to pass inspection and was closed leaving a void between Plainfield and Somerville and the New Brunswick hospitals.

A group had been formed to build a hospital in Green Brook Township. Unfortunately, the new hospital, Raritan Valley Hospital was built on land within the Green Brook flood plain and could only be two-story high building.

I felt that I should have a second Hospital as a backup in case conditions became unsatisfactory at Muhlenberg. There was now a choice to selecting either one as the secondary hospital, and, unfortunately as it turned out, I chose Raritan Valley.

Although I did not like the fact that only a select five full-time employed physicians would have the sole power to act for the medical staff, there were many positive reasons for that choice. I had a substantial practice from the Dunellen and Middlesex area.

I was impressed with four of the full time doctors who not only were highly competent but decent human beings. The Radiologist was one of the best that I knew in my 45+ years in practice. The Internist was a qualified Cardiologist and a friendly individual. The Pathologist was most knowledgeable and after leaving this hospital became professor of Pathology at a southern medical school. The Anesthesiologist was extremely competent. Although there was a great camaraderie among Muhlenberg’s physicians, the doctor’s lunch facility was often overcrowded and I enjoyed escaping to RVH and having lunch with the “chiefs” and physicians from the Bound Brook-Somerville area.

The fifth full time physician, the Chief for Surgery, was not board certified but was related to the chairman of the hospital board. This surgeon’s cases seemed to have an excessive morbidity rate. Also, unfortunately controversial medical care decisions in the "Medical Board” often resulted in a four to one vote, with the one vote being adopted by the Governing Board.

Ultimately, the other four members of the executive committee called for an open but informal staff meeting to discuss the problem. In the middle of that meeting, the Chairman of the board entered the meeting room. He interrupted the discussion and said “This meeting is illegal. I will not have a hanging jury in my hospital destroyed this brilliant young man. You are to leave at once."

The reaction from the nearly 100 doctors present what was one that could have been anticipated. No one left but immediately called a rump meeting to discuss the matter. Some of them turned to me and said "Yood, you are the oldest here. Please conduct this meeting". The result was that a volunteer medical staff organization was set up and I was elected president. I was of course not flattered by being called the oldest because I was in my early 40s. Fred Pearl an OBGYN from Bound Brook/ Somerville was made Vice President and a steering committee appointed.

For the only time in my medical career 100 percent of the physicians on the hospital staff contributed $100 to pay for legal action. We employed a lawyer recommended for his hospital expertise. Unfortunately we had little help from the State Society. We met several times with the executive committee of the board and almost had straightened out for the problems when one of our steering committee members, a surgeon who had spent years in the army, unexpectedly spoke up saying "I charge this board was deliberately trying to sabotage the medical staff."

At that point without hesitation a member of the board of governors jumped up almost hitting the ceiling and very apologetically said this meeting is over, He not only was on the board of the bank that had underwritten most of the loans to the hospital, but was also one of the political bosses in Somerset County, thus a power in the state Republican Party. His political impact would ultimately determine the fate of the Hospital.

There would be no future talks. Soon after that episode, all four quality members of the medical executive committee resigned. Their replacements were second rate at best.

The successor Radiologist had been fired from his Philadelphia Hospital, and there were X-rays that were misread. The Pathologist was adequate but did not compare either in personality or person with his predecessor.

The new Chief of Staff, an internist, had been associated with one of the New Brunswick Hospital, and supposedly was not popular with its staff. He was a very bigoted individual who stated that he would never have “any foreign legion” in HIS hospital.

A good community hospital had become not only an uncomfortable but also an unsafe place to practice.

After the new Chief of Staff arrived, both the Obstetrician and I were called before the Board of Governors who were going to suspend our privileges. I thought I had done well by appearing with my attorney and a tape recorder. Initially the lawyer on their board sputtered about the recorder, but yielded to our recording the meeting. Which was very short and closed without action? The next day I learned that the other doctor had met with them the day before, but had upstaged me by bringing a court reporter to record the meeting.

Needless to say, neither of us was suspended from the hospital staff. But, almost all the doctors on the staff felt that the laboratory and especially Radiology situation made it unsafe to treat their patients in RVH.

Fortunately all members of the “volunteer” medical staff could admit patients to other area hospitals. There were a few exception; A physician who had had his privileges suspended or revoke at St. Peters in New Brunswick and at Somerset Hospital,accounted for almost 90% of admissions after the others had independently ceased using Raritan Valley. There were a very small number from the Warren area that had no other affiliation at that time and needed the hospital. The patient census fell below 50%. . What was never publicized was in effect the first time that I know that physicians had literally boycotted a hospital in the interests of patient safety. This ultimately ended with the hospital becoming bankrupt.

Because of, the political influence on the hospital board , the state persuaded the Rutgers Medical School to abandon its plan to build a teaching hospital adjacent to the medical school and, even though it could not be adequately expanded and was quite a distance from the medical school, to convert RVH into its teaching hospital. The taxpayers had again bailed out a politician’s blunder. Ultimately the medical school abandoned the hospital for one of the New Brunswick hospitals.