Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN -- No one in their right mind would say that the environment is not one of the major issues of our time.
Major lakes and rivers in parts of this country are highly polluted (although some cleanup efforts, like that on the Gowanus Canal, have made progress). Air pollution contributes to respiratory diseases, many people have serious concerns about the safety of gas drilling in upstate New York, and the supply of fossil fuel is running out. We seriously need to develop renewable energy and to recycle our garbage more effectively.
However, there are some people who focus only on the environment as the big issue of our time. The environment, of course, is only one of several big issues – there’s education, the economy, foreign conflicts, labor conflicts, housing. And those are just a few.
The unfortunate truth is that the “powers that be,” for decades, have promoted environmentalism as a “safe” outlet for youthful idealism, for young people’s desire for social change. And many of these young people, and not-so-young people, are enraptured with environmentalism on the surface, but fail to make connections, to see the environment in context.
They fail to examine why so many American corporations and foreign governments like Russia and China have engaged in massive pollution, and without adequate controls may continue to do so in the future.
At its extreme, this sort of narrow vision has led to widespread acceptance of a situation where the mayor of New York City proposes to build bike lanes on every other street and all sorts of “green” traffic islands, but almost in the same breath threatens to cut the jobs of 6,000 teachers and to close almost 100 senior centers.
Most misled are those people who are under the delusion that they’re changing the world because they’re growing a garden on the roof or buying organic apples rather than “regular” apples. I, given the choice in a grocery or produce store, would probably buy the organic apples, but it’s mainly because, in the long run, this will contribute to my personal health. I have no illusions that I am impacting the wider society in a major way by doing so.
If every single person in the city started to buy organic apples and broccoli tomorrow, the stock market would still be in serious trouble, the good credit rating of the United States would still be in doubt, unemployment would still be high, and wars would still be going on in at least a dozen countries in the world. That’s something to think about.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
LICH, Continuum and St. Vincent's
FROM BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE
BROOKLYN — Recently Continuum Health Partners, known to Downtown Brooklyn residents as the parent company of Long Island College Hospital, backed down from its offer to buy the troubled St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village.
The problem with this arrangement is that Continuum planned to shut down St. Vincent’s inpatient facilities, basically turn it into a giant outpatient clinic, and serve those needing immediate hospital care at its more profitable Beth Israel and Roosevelt hospitals. This would have effectively left all of the West Side of Manhattan up to the 50s without a hospital.
Local onlookers certainly noticed the similarity to Continuum’s management of Long Island College Hospital (LICH). In 2008, Continuum sought to shut down LICH’s Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Dentistry departments and sell some of the hospital’s buildings.
This gave rise to charges that Continuum’s long-range plan was to shut down the hospital entirely, sell its buildings for real estate, and use its assets to boost up Beth Israel and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt. Continuum officials denied this charge, but in the wake of the St. Vincent’s proposal, I’m not so sure that they didn’t have this in mind.
As we know, the plan to close the LICH departments was disallowed by the state Health Department. Eventually, Continuum decided that LICH was more trouble than it was worth, and signed off on a plan to let LICH detach from it and affiliate with Downstate instead.
Continuum’s behavior in both cases isn’t unique. For example, in the early 1980s, Jewish Memorial Hospital in Inwood, Upper Manhattan, went under, due to circumstances that were never really explained. A few months later, the huge Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital opened a clinic in Inwood.
What I can say, however, is that managing hospitals bears a certain responsibility because life-or-death situations depend on it. If Starbucks or a chain of shoe stores decides that it has to cut back for financial reasons, it can close a few outlets and nobody, other than a few people living within the immediate vicinity of the Starbucks outlets or the local shoe stores in question, will mind. But if an ambulance has to travel 10 more minutes to the nearest hospital, that person could die.
The LICH and St. Vincent’s debacles should urgently drive home the need to remake the nation’s healthcare system from the bottom to the top. Perhaps in 60 more years, the U.S. will be ready for a single-payer system, but how many more hospitals will have closed in the meantime?
* * *
BROOKLYN — Recently Continuum Health Partners, known to Downtown Brooklyn residents as the parent company of Long Island College Hospital, backed down from its offer to buy the troubled St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village.
The problem with this arrangement is that Continuum planned to shut down St. Vincent’s inpatient facilities, basically turn it into a giant outpatient clinic, and serve those needing immediate hospital care at its more profitable Beth Israel and Roosevelt hospitals. This would have effectively left all of the West Side of Manhattan up to the 50s without a hospital.
Local onlookers certainly noticed the similarity to Continuum’s management of Long Island College Hospital (LICH). In 2008, Continuum sought to shut down LICH’s Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Dentistry departments and sell some of the hospital’s buildings.
This gave rise to charges that Continuum’s long-range plan was to shut down the hospital entirely, sell its buildings for real estate, and use its assets to boost up Beth Israel and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt. Continuum officials denied this charge, but in the wake of the St. Vincent’s proposal, I’m not so sure that they didn’t have this in mind.
As we know, the plan to close the LICH departments was disallowed by the state Health Department. Eventually, Continuum decided that LICH was more trouble than it was worth, and signed off on a plan to let LICH detach from it and affiliate with Downstate instead.
Continuum’s behavior in both cases isn’t unique. For example, in the early 1980s, Jewish Memorial Hospital in Inwood, Upper Manhattan, went under, due to circumstances that were never really explained. A few months later, the huge Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital opened a clinic in Inwood.
What I can say, however, is that managing hospitals bears a certain responsibility because life-or-death situations depend on it. If Starbucks or a chain of shoe stores decides that it has to cut back for financial reasons, it can close a few outlets and nobody, other than a few people living within the immediate vicinity of the Starbucks outlets or the local shoe stores in question, will mind. But if an ambulance has to travel 10 more minutes to the nearest hospital, that person could die.
The LICH and St. Vincent’s debacles should urgently drive home the need to remake the nation’s healthcare system from the bottom to the top. Perhaps in 60 more years, the U.S. will be ready for a single-payer system, but how many more hospitals will have closed in the meantime?
* * *
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