After a physician's hunger strike sparked community opposition, Health System of Niagara (N.Y.) has revamped its plans to transfer acute-care services from one of its two hospitals to the other.
The two-hospital system will maintain a 35-bed inpatient unit, an 18-bed intensive-care/coronary-care unit and a 20-bed alternative-level-of-care unit at Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Memorial Medical Center, a 288-bed facility.
"Planned admissions will be concentrated at our 159-bed Mount St. Mary's Hospital campus (in neighboring Lewiston), where we have beds available for both pediatric and adult patients," said Angelo Calbone, president and chief executive officer of HSN, in a statement. For the time being, mater-nity and newborn services will also be available at both Niagara Falls and Mount St. Mary's.
Before HSN consolidates any more services, the system will connect all its sites, including clinics, with a free shuttle for patients and their families and friends.
"Access and cost will not be an issue," Calbone said.
The system also will invest $8 million in the Niagara Falls campus to convert remaining space at the hospital into a 140-bed nursing home.
Calbone acknowledged that HSN's new plan still poses some financial problems for the system, saying that "we will continue to work hard to address these fiscal imperatives."
Mount St. Mary's and Niagara Falls Memorial formed a mergerlike partnership last year, creating HSN as a joint operating company. Plans to consolidate services emerged in early January.
Later that month, Amarjid Virk, M.D., an anesthesiologist, went on a hunger strike to protest the planned consolidation of services, which would have left Niagara Falls without acute-care services like surgery and child delivery (Jan. 19, p. 3). Physicians and patients rallied behind Virk and forced a public hearing, which resulted in the amended consolidation plan.
HSN officials said they will continue to study how to provide services to the area.
