Peninsula Hospital Center Bankruptcy Update

Peninsula's vital signs showing symptoms of distress.

Plans by Revival Home Health Care, a for-profit health care company, to acquire Peninsula Hospital Center could collapse, as a creditors group asks the Bankruptcy Court to let creditors market Peninsula to other potential buyers, reported Crain's.

It is unclear if Peninsula's unsecured creditors are afraid that the New York State Department of Health and/or the Bankruptcy Court will block the Revival Home Health Care deal. But the Crain's reported added that an official report by a court-appointed examiner found serious, possible conflicts of interests between the Peninsula's board and its buyer, Revival.

The employees and creditors of Peninsula don't have much to worry about : the serious conflicts of interest that existed in the bankruptcy and sale of St. Vincent's Hospital to the Rudin family for pennies of the dollar, the Rudin family's campaign donations to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn that have the appearance of "pay-to-play" implications, and even an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, have yet to stop the Rudin family's massive billion-dollar luxury condo and townhouse conversion plan for St. Vincent's.

The only thing that remains truly uncertain is how much of Peninsula's full hospital services will remain after the sale. By comparison, after St. Vincent's was closed, its full-service hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center services were downsized to an urgent care clinic to be operated by Lenox Hill Hospital.

Peninsula Hospital Files For Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy filing for Peninsula

From Crain's :

Peninsula Hospital and its affiliate, Peninsula General Nursing Home Corp. — which does business as Peninsula Center for Extended Care & Rehabilitation — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday. They listed total assets of $34.6 million and liabilities of $70.8 million, as of May 31.

Peninsula recently struck a deal to be managed by an affiliate of Revival Home Health Care, which provided an $8 million line of credit. The bankruptcy was a condition of the transaction. The filing indicates that during the bankruptcy, the hospital and nursing home will not change their current nonprofit status.

Todd Miller, Peninsula's chief restructuring officer as of Sept. 1, said in his affidavit that Peninsula would break even or become profitable “through a change in culture, marketing strategies and by feeding off synergies with Revival's related businesses.” He added that “with a new management team and fresh capital,” Peninsula can boost revenue by attracting patients who now only use the hospital for emergency care.

Mr. Miller said new management would try to tempt residents with new offerings of cardiac services, more surgery capabilities and improved oncology services. He said Revival management believes “neither the hospital nor the nursing home were aggressively managed in recent years and that implementation of new procedures will result in significant savings as well as increased revenues.”

To boost revenue, the hospital is recruiting a new case manager who will tackle the institution's higher-than-average length of stay. Mr. Miller also said the hospital was building new relationships with home care agencies and nursing homes to more quickly obtain placement for its patients.

The Revival team also is targeting purchasing and maintenance procedures, which it labeled “inefficient.” Added Mr. Miller: “Properly managing these procedures and vendor relationships will generate significant savings.”

Peninsula signed an engagement letter with Alvarez & Marsal on Aug. 29 for the firm to provide the hospital with consulting, restructuring and financial advisory services at an initial cost of $160,000.

Peninsula's payroll obligations, excluding benefits, for the 30 days following the filing are $3.6 million, with $2.77 million in payroll for the hospital and the rest for the nursing home. The hospital employs 134 doctors, four administrators and 551 other workers. The nursing home employs two doctors, two administrators, 36 registered nurses and 207 other workers.

Quinn NYT Infomercial Fluff

To find out how real journalists assess City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's record, one needs to look no further than the sensibility expressed in this blog post on True News From Change : NYT Sets the Definition on How To Judge and Pick the Next Mayor and It Fits Quinn

In his blog post, the journalist Gary Tilzer makes many astute observations about David W. Chen's infomercial fluff piece about Speaker Quinn, and perhaps this is the most sharpest of Mr. Tilzer's criticisms : ''It was the publisher of the NYT, along with the NYP and Daily News, that used their papers to support changing the term limits law to allow Bloomberg and Quinn to run for a third term. Mr. Chen does not challenge Quinn when she brushes off her term limits and other critics as 'naïve' ideologues.''

It's already been documented how Christine Quinn bluffs her way through important social issues.

What Speaker Quinn is doing by making her ''unapologetic'' ''move to the middle'' is selling out the working class families of New York City. Her policies favour real estate developers -- and come to the detriment, suffering, and mass displacement of working class New Yorkers. Speaker Quinn's vision of New York City is a continuation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's vision : more glass and steel luxury condos and less hospitals, firehouses, public schools, and senior centers. Speaker Quinn wants to make life so unbearable to the average wage-earning New Yorker that we all pick up and leave town.

How do we know that Christine Quinn has sold out her values and beliefs and still find herself to be in a place of denial about it, so much so that she accuses her critics of being “naïve” ideologues ?

Speaker Quinn's ideas about leadership in New York, by supporting the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, which used to be the only full-service hospital with a Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street, is like GLAAD publicly supporting the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger. Not only would AT&T be in an even stronger position to undo net neutrality, but what is GLAAD doing by meddling in a telecom merger approval process with the FCC ? Likewise, why is a ''supposedly!! celebrated LGBT third-term politician like Christine Quinn rushing toward the ''middle'' of the political spectrum, if it means that she has to abandon her idealistic beginnings and instead now oppose paid sick leave and a living wage bill ?

"AT&T was one of the companies whose local representatives sits on the board of directors of the Tennessee chamber of commerce," wrote John Aravosis at Americablog. "You remember them, the group that endorsed and actively lobbied for the measure repealing gay and trans rights ordinances in the state, mandating it so that no trans person can ever change their birth certificate gender in the future, and banning any future civil rights ordinances for anyone in the future. That AT&T."

What does the intersection of St. Vincent's Hospital/Rudin Family Luxury Condo Conversion and the GLAAD/AT&T T-Mobile mega deals have to do with Christine Quinn and New York City politics ?

In each case, you see the erosion of core values of fighting for an activist's central reason for being : serving their constituency. But once you get to be so big, you can blow off you constituency as “naïve” ideologues (or drop the F-bomb on them, the way that one of her administrative assistants did).

If, throughout our nation's history, our goal has been to distribute power and authority equally among voters, then the voters, who have less choices on election day, get their voices muffled. Who is going to challenge GLAAD to focus once again on its original intention ? Who is going to put pressure on Christine Quinn to deliver on the community’s demands to stop all the hospital closings that are happening across New York City ?

It is not too much to expect that the people, who you elect to City Council, start to deliver something tangible for New York City voters.

• If you disliked how City Council members extended term limits without a voter referendum, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
• If you agree, that Speaker Quinn needs to hear the voices of communities, who are demanding that hospitals stop closing all across the five boroughs, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
• If you can no longer accept a weekly threat by Mayor Bloomberg to layoff teachers and firefighters, and to close schools and firehouses, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
• If you want Speaker Quinn to shut down her $50 million slush fund, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
• If you refuse to settle for City Council members, who take tens of thousands of campaign donations from real estate developers in exchange for what seems like pay-to-play real estate development deal approvals, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
• If you believe that Speaker Quinn betrays the LGBT community, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
• If you have your own issue, that you'd like to bring to Speaker Quinn's attention, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us

Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Quinn Plaza Hotel Protest

Christine Quinn - Plaza Hotel - Gays Against Quinn (Protest Video)

Over 20 activists gathered outside the Plaza Hotel in a demonstration against City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Watch as protesters speak against Christine Quinn to former Mayor David Dinkins' entourage and hand anti-Quinn literature to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Some of us were there because of Speaker Quinn's use of a $50 million slush fund during a time when we live under constant threat by Mayor Bloomberg, that he is going to lay off teachers and close down fire houses. Others were there, because Speaker Quinn pushed through a controversial extension of term limits, allowing Mayor Bloomberg, herself, and others, to run for a third term in office. Still yet others were there because of Speaker Quinn's complete abdication of full civil rights for LGBT New Yorkers, do-nothing record over hospital closings, horrible animal rights record, and use of city staff for campaign work.

Please join us for a Third Anniversary Protest of the Term Limits Extension at 2 pm on Sunday, October 23, at City Hall.

Please also join our Facebook group : Gays Against Christine Quinn.

Politicians and Protesters call for an investigation of Medisys official Robert Levine over Peninsula Hospital closing

Peninsula Hospital closure draws outraged calls for a state investigation from almost everybody, excepting for Christine Quinn, of course, naturally, it should go without saying.

From The New York Daily News :

Local pols on Sunday called on state officials to investigate the planned closing of Peninsula Hospital in Queens. During a protest that drew dozens of hospital workers and Rockaways residents, State Sen. Malcolm Smith urged Health Commissioner Nirav Shah not to approve the closing plan for the century-old Far Rockaway hospital without conducting a formal investigation of its finances first. "The Rockaways cannot afford for Peninsula to not be there," said Smith (D-Queens), noting its emergency room provides care for more than 30,000 patients per year. At the rally outside the state Health Department's office in Lower Manhattan, protestors chanted, "Keep the hospital open" and waved signs saying, "Rockaway Needs Peninsula" and "Investigate Before Closing." ....

Peninsula Hospital Closing Protest

Peninsula Hospital Center - Protesters Take Over Lobby - Hospital Closings in NYC

Approximately 200 union employees, residents of Far Rockaway, in Queens, and local officials, gathered in the rain outside Peninsula Hospital Center, across the bay from JFK Airport. Peninsula Hospital Center has filed a plan to shut its doors. The hospital’s owner is embroiled in a political and financial scandal, but employees and residents are worried about the threat to public health, should the hospital’s closure plan be approved.

Attendees of the rally braved the rain, then, once the rally had ended, stormed into one of the lobbies of the hospital, until hospital officials called the police, to clear the lobby of its own employees.

In the time that Christine Quinn had been speaker of the City Council, eight hospitals (not counting Peninsula) have closed. If Peninsula closes, it would mark the ninth hospital to close under Speaker Quinn's watch.

This week, President Obama agreed to severe budget cuts to social safety net programs, that underpin the social contract we make with our government and amongst ourselves. More budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will lead to a further collapse of our healthcare system. Is Christine Quinn in Bermuda with Mayor Michael Bloomberg each time a hospital closes in New York City ? Is President Obama surfing in Hawaii each time a hospital closes in America ?

If we obediently listen to people, who are in power (the same people who work for us, the very same people who are closing our hospitals), telling us to leave the lobby of a closing hospital, then it just makes it that much easier for the New York State Department of Health/Christine Quinn to keep closing hospitals.

William Rudin Peninsula Hospital

Is the Rudin Family eyeing their next real estate harvesting operation on the dead carcass of the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens ?

After he's done with St. Vincent's Hospital, it has been heard on the street that William Rudin is considering another real estate harvesting operation, this time at the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens.

Collapse of the Social Safety Net in New York City

Queens' Peninsula Hospital Center set to close ; New York Downtown Hospital putting patients on stretchers in the hallway to accommodate unmanageable influx of emergency patients.

"Sources say the Far Rockaway, Queens, hospital will shutter after owing millions to vendors and falling behind on its union benefits funds payments; the closure would cost the area about 1,000 jobs," reported Crain's.

The Queens Crap blog published a post today, indicating that Peninsula Hospital Center had filed a 90-day closure plan, a requirement under the law that was violated when St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010. Meanwhile, the Real Deal blog reported that once the Peninsula Hospital Center closes, all healthcare emergencies are going to overwhelm St. Johns Episcopal Hospital, which will become the only healthcare facility servicing the distant Queens neighborhood of Far Rockaway. Separately, the True News From Change NYC blog linked the collapse of Peninsula Hospital Center with political corruption and possible kickbacks.

Is our social safety net not too big to fail ?

Does nobody in City Council have any concern about the financial collapse of so many hospitals across all five New York City boroughs ?

Does Mayor Michael Bloomberg not care, either ?

Meanwhile, following the illegal closing of St. Vincent's Hospital last year, there reamins only one hospital south of 16th Street in Manhattan, New York Downtown Hospital, which The New York Post has reported as being ''overwhelmed,'' and is leading to an ''emergency-care crisis,'' the newspaper reports.