Subaqua Sternal Rubs

The hospital business in New York, one of the largest and most prized sectors of the region's economy, is deep in financial trouble, which is forcing it into a sharp, swift contraction. Across the city and state, public and industry officials agree, hospital doors are likely to begin swinging shut over the next year, and thousands of jobs could be lost.

Twelve New York hospitals have closed in the last 27 months, and others have shut wings, wards and clinics. The industry as a whole has lost money five years in a row in New York, while turning a profit nationally each year. Even some of New York's biggest, most sophisticated teaching hospitals, like Mount Sinai and St. Vincent's in Manhattan, have been hemorrhaging money. Just last week, county officials scrambled to assemble a cash infusion for Westchester Medical Center.

Though it has lost 20,000 beds in the last 15 years, New York still has almost 20,000 more hospital beds than it needs, according to Dennis P. Whalen, the state's executive deputy health commissioner - nearly one-third of the current total, equivalent to dozens of hospitals and tens of thousands of jobs. Hospital officials call that figure exaggerated, but they concede that whatever the true number, it points toward a wave of closings still to come.

At the moment, it is too early to say which hospitals are likely to go under. But there is widespread agreement in government and the industry that those most likely to close are smaller, financially weak institutions with other hospitals nearby. Hospitals that duplicate one another's services in smaller cities upstate are also vulnerable.

The consensus view is that some hospitals will be spared, no matter how poorly they fare financially. They include those that are far from other hospitals, are closely tied to medical schools, have very busy emergency rooms, or are rated as Level 1 trauma centers, those that can handle the most serious cases. Most of the city's public hospitals will probably remain open, but some smaller ones, like North Central Bronx Hospital, have a questionable future.

Read more at the New York Times

Well, I either:

1) won't have a job soon, since there is another hospital less than a mile away that performs all the same services, and more.

2) will always have a job, since there is usually a 4+ hour wait to see an MD in the Emergency Dept., because demand is greater than capacity. (and partially because patients admitted to the hospital have had to stay in their ED room for days, since there were no rooms available upstairs. On some days it got so bad that only 10% of the 50 ED exam rooms were available for emergency patients, the rest were admits.)

I'm thinking the latter is more likely…

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