The Jewish affiliated hospitals in Denver, Milwaukee and Minneapolis have announced they will merge with or sell to nearby non-Jewish hospitals primarily for economic reasons, despite concern by some local Jews that the reorganization will mean a loss of care sensitive to Jewish needs.
These moves apparently are the first of their kind for Jewish hospitals in the rapidly changing health care industry. However, most Jewish hospitals have consolidated services with other hospitals without merging, Warren Green, president of Mount Sinai Hospital of Minneapolis, told The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
The 1986 “Jewish Directory and Almanac” lists 46 hospitals and medical centers in its “Yellow Pages.”
DENVER’S BETH ISRAEL SOLD
In Denver, the 70-year-old Beth Israel Hospital has been sold to St. Anthony Hospital for an undisclosed amount. The merger agreement is set to be completed in September. The two hospitals have worked together for many years, sharing medical staff.
According to a Beth Israel spokesperson, the merger will “enable us to better serve the needs of the community and combine our expertise.” The new name of the hospital has not been decided.
Beth Israel, with 167 beds, also operates a nursing home, as well as three health care clinics for the elderly, mobile diagnostic programs and two adult day care centers.
The merger has left questions as to what will happen to Denver’s Jewish elderly who receive care at Beth Israel Geriatric Center, but board members promise that the hospital’s sale will facilitate the building of a new Beth Israel to serve the elderly. The construction could be finished in four years, Siegel said.
MILWAUKEE MERGER ANNOUNCED
In Milwaukee, Mount Sinai Medical Center, with 410 beds, will merge with Good Samaritan Medical Center within the next two years, becoming the non-sectarian Sinai-Samaritan Medical Center.
Mount Sinai officials told The Chronicle that they were compelled to merge because the high cost of providing health care and the overcrowded Milwaukee health care market were threatening its closure. They cited studies that show the move will save the two centers $7 million a year.
Stanley Kritzik, chairman of Mount Sinai’s board, called the merger a gain for the Milwaukee Jewish community “because we’re not going to go to the Jewish community for money to support waste and inefficiency.” Sinai-Samaritan will probably continue to receive money from the Milwaukee Jewish Federation to provide health care for Soviet emigres and older adults.
Mount Sinai’s chief of staff, Dr. Morris Sable, said the merger saddens him because it means “the end of an era” for Jewish doctors who for years were prohibited from practicing at non-Jewish hospitals, the reason for Mount Sinai’s founding in 1903.
Another Jewish physician wrote in The Chronicle that he and many Jewish colleagues were upset over the change and their lack of input. However, no doctors have pulled their practices from Mount Sinai.
ANOTHER MERGER IN TWIN CITIES
The other Mount Sinai, in Minneapolis, has begun steps to merge with Metropolitan Medical Center there. The two hospitals will be joined under Health One, the area’s largest multi-hospital organization.
Nancy Jensen, director of public relations at Mount Sinai, a 273-bed facility, told the American Jewish World that one reason for the merger “was the complimentary services of the two hospitals and two, was the proximity of six or seven blocks.”
Dr. Irving Shapiro, medical director of Mount Sinai’s Phillips Eye Institute, said that the merger is “mandatory. In this day and age, the third-party payers’ writing insurance policies are not interested in small, independent hospitals. And a patient will not come here because the care is not paid for.”
The “real savings,” according to Shapiro, will come in the areas of common purchase and services which will enable the hospitals to operate their separate treatment specialties without doubling the cost.
“We will still maintain our identity,” said Shapiro, “and will not change the special relationship we have with the Jewish community.”
The Minneapolis Mount Sinai was formed by the Jewish community in 1951 to enable all doctors to practice as equals regardless of religious affiliation. Shapiro recalled that before Mount Sinai “a Jewish physician could not admit a patient under his own name. He had to find a non-Jewish doctor to admit the patient.”
Although Jewish patients were attracted to the hospital because of its adherence to the Jewish dietary laws, many, if not most, of its patients were not Jews.
Mount Sinai in Milwaukee said it has established a foundation to channel specifically Jewish philanthropic funds. The Minneapolis Mount Sinai is considering the idea, its president told The Chronicle.
NOT CITY’S ONLY JEWISH HOSPITAL
In related news, the Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia reports that the Albert Einstein Healthcare Foundation will sell its Mount Sinai-Daroff Division in the formerly Jewish South Philadelphia area to Graduate Hospital, pending approval of both boards. The 210-bed Mount Sinai is a constituent of the Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia, and is not the city’s only Jewish affiliated hospital. The foundation owns others.
The purchase price for the hospital, built around the turn of the century and renovated in 1983 for $30 million, is reportedly $10 million or $11 million. Graduate Hospital board chairman Harold Cramer said the new facility’s location in a residential area and selling price were attractive.
The Einstein foundation is selling at an acknowledged loss because Mount Sinai-Daroff “has become an expensive institution and a drain,” explained Mark Levitan, president of the foundation.
He said he expected the hospital to operate as it did, with no need to change staff.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
