PHILADELPHIA-Mount Sinai Hospital, a 170-bed facility here, will be closed in October by its owner, Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation. Mount Sinai came to AHERF in 1996 in a deal with Graduate Health System of Philadelphia, which had converted it into a rehabilitation and behavioral hospital. AHERF is negotiating a sale of the facility to Specialty Hospitals of America in Dallas, which would reopen it as a long-term acute-care hospital next year.
NEW YORK-A private group of 375 physicians will take over management of two city-owned Bronx hospitals after the city dropped its previous manager. The hospitals are 469-bed Jacobi Medical Center and 365-bed North Central Bronx Hospital, which are known as the North Bronx Health Care Network. Under an agreement in principle reached late last month, the city will pay the doctors $253 million over three years to operate the hospitals. In June the city terminated a management contract with Montefiore Medical Center citing poor performance. In response the doctors, most of whom work at the hospitals, formed their own management corporation, the Jacobi/North Central Bronx Physicians Alliance.
SELLERSVILLE, Pa.-The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited 196-bed Grand View Hospital in Sellersville for three alleged violations of radiation safety requirements uncovered during a June inspection. The alleged violations stem from the handling of a contaminated package returned to an outside nuclear pharmacy, the NRC said. As a result, the NRC has proposed a $4,400 fine. NRC said Grand View's corrective actions were prompt and comprehensive. The hospital has until mid-month to pay the proposed fine or contest it. A hospital spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.
MANCHESTER, N.H.-Amid opposition from Manchester's mayor, a local company has postponed its plans to open a drug and alcohol rehabilitation hospital for prison inmates in the former Lake Shore Hospital. Education and Health Centers of America said it needs to work out more details before it reopens the facility, which has been vacant since January 1994. The company approached the state with its idea for a treatment center last spring, but the state made no commitment. The company's decision pleased neighborhood opponents and gives city officials a chance to look at other options, such as turning it into a special education school. "This was not a money issue," Mayor Ray Wieczorek said. "As far as I'm concerned, this was a quality-of-life issue." Under the initial deal, the company had agreed not to treat arsonists, child molesters or murderers. But Wieczorek said he was afraid the state would eventually turn the center into a facility for inmates. The company plans "to try to resolve the questions (of) population and funding to the mayor's satisfaction," said Richard Fradette, a Manchester lawyer representing Education and Health Centers. "If we can't satisfy the mayor and his representatives, the project is abandoned."
