About 300 people filled the Quincy High School auditorium for a hearing Tuesday on the planned closure of Quincy Medical Center.
Dec 3, 2014 at 6:37 AM
QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS - City residents had a message for Attorney General Martha Coakley and the state's Department of Public Health: Save Quincy Medical Center and hold Steward Health Care System accountable.
Critics of Steward's plan to close the 124-year-old hospital at 114 Whitwell St. by Dec. 31 gave impassioned testimony Tuesday during a public hearing at Quincy High School. Some fear that the absence of a hospital in a city approaching 100,000 residents will result in tragedy for those in need of quick care.
"I am begging you to please not close Quincy hospital or the emergency room, because people are going to die," Christine Smith, a nurse in Quincy Medical's emergency room, said...
... On Nov. 6, Steward, a for-profit company, announced it would close Quincy Medical after years of patient decline. The closure, which Steward says will happen by Dec. 31 despite state law requiring a 90-day notice, will eliminate 545 jobs.
Several residents criticized Coakley for not attending the hearing. Her office is investigating the legality of Steward's plan to close the hospital. When Steward bought the hospital in Bankruptcy Court in 2011, the company agreed to keep the hospital open at least seven years.
In a statement released Tuesday, Coakley, whose tenure as attorney general will end next month, said her office is listening to Steward's claims that the 2011 contract is not in the best interests of the community. She said no decision on the contract has been made...
Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
I thank local nurses who posted. You truly your area.
Quincy says goodbye to hospital 'up the hill'
Fred Donahue was born in Quincy Hospital in 1955 and his mother in 1927. His wife, Cynthia, was born there, as was her mother and her three sisters.
He had his tonsils removed there when he was 5 ("It was like a factory, there must have been 40 kids in one giant room''). As his family grew, Donahue and his wife took their children there for stitches, pneumonia, and myriad urgent-care boo-boos. And, years later, he entered a 12-step program at the hospital and he has been sober for 27 years.
Quincy Hospital treated his father's stomach cancer and, he says, "saved my mother's life" when her intestines became twisted.
Like many Quincy residents over the decades, the extended Donahue family "went up the hill" to the 125-year-old hospital, from cradle to grave...
... Before it was Hospital Hill, it was Cranch Hill: Richard Cranch, who married Abigail Adams's sister, owned a farm on the site. Before that, it was President's Hill: John Adams owned the land....
... The original hospital benefactors were neighbors, who donated three acres and the first building, in 1890. "It began as a private cottage hospital with 25 beds," says Quincy's city historian Tom Galvin. "It was originally built to help quarry workers suffering from lung disease."...
... William Carey, 52, still gets his care at the hospital, including knee and colon-cancer surgeries. "This hospital has always been very good to me," says Carey, who works for Verizon. "The nurses are fantastic. It's a shame."...
... According to Steward, there will still be 24-hour emergency room access and an urgent-care center in the city, though the location has not been determined....
... Mary Foley Johnson, 78, Fred Donahue's mother-in-law, is upset about it. "I think it's sad and worrisome that Quincy will not have a hospital," says Johnson, who was born there and gave birth to three of her four children there. "I wouldn't want to try to get through Quincy at rush hour to get to South Shore or any other hospital, with traffic as bad as it is. I can't imagine going to one of those places if you were having a heart attack."...
Certainly a sign of the times with more control and restrictions on care that many here have little knowledge of. Meaning that the health care crisis is very evident in many classifications and details of financial abuse is not well documented for public display. Greedy profiteers will have to find other areas to collect from. People will want to blame Obama Care but the reality is that its about time these runaway costs get addressed.
herring_RN, ASN, BSN
3,651 Posts
I thank local nurses who posted. You truly your area.