Our Town, May 27, 2004
Beth Israel to Close Unit on East End
Nearest E.R. Would be at Lenox Hill Hospital
Lauren A. Elkies

Because Beth Israel Medical Center plans to close its Singer Division this summer, people living nearby can expect to travel up to 10 blocks and two avenues farther to reach the closest emergency room. Even without the Beth Israel outpost, however, Upper East Siders would be able to choose from among three full-service hospitals within a radius of about one mile.

On or about Aug 1., the 14-story Singer Division, at 170 East End Ave., between 87th and 88th Streets, is to be shut. Since 1987, when Beth Israel took over management of the former Doctors’ Hospitals in Yorkville, the 200-plus-bed hospital has provided emergency room, orthopedic and neuroscience services to the community.

In a May 18 memorandum, Stanley Brezenoff, president and chief executive officer of Continuum, told the Continuum staff: “We determined that we could relocate these programs to the larger Continuum hospitals, namely Beth Israel Petrie and Roosevelt Hospital…Petrie and Roosevelt have space available, and we are developing relocation plants”

The decision has been attributed to financial considerations.

Continuum Health Partners is a conglomerate of hospitals including Beth Israel, Roosevelt Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital, Long Island College Hospital and New York Eye & Ear Infirmary.

Jim Mandler, spokesman for Continuum, said one program would definitely be relocated and the fate of the smaller programs was undecided. The Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery, a program built in the Singer Division at 1996, would be relocated to Roosevelt Hospital.

“We’re hoping all of the key clinical programs will be relocated to other hospitals,” Mandler said

As for the Insall Scott Kelly Institute for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, which has been at the Singer Division since 1989 or 1990, “It’s yet to be determined what will happen with that program,” Mandler said. Later, he said, “The E.R. is definitely not going to be relocated – that’s a facility based program.”

The hospital has 1,100 employees – of whom 50 are full-time salaried physicians – and if a program moves, Mandler said, its employees would, too.

Neighboring hospitals could attract more patients as a result of the Singer Divisions’ closure.

“We see this as kind of a positive thing,” said Terence O’Brien, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Lenox Hill Hospital. He speculated that three emergency rooms, Lenox Hill Hospital at 77th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, Mount Sinai Hospital at 101st Street and Madison Avenue, and New York-Presbyterian Hospital on 68th Street and York Avenue – would split Beth Israel’s 12,000 annual E.R. visits.

“We would anticipate four to five thousand additional emergency room visits,” O’Brien said.

Lenox Hill Hospital has begun a project, which it had planned for some time, that will double its emergency room’s floor space and increase capacity to 60,000 patients a year from its current 40,000, he said. Construction is expected to be completed in August 2005.

After receiving dozens of telephone calls recently from Beth Israel physicians interested in applying for privileges at Lenox Hill, the latter hospital has established a liaison and is holding an open house for doctors.

“I think people are quite upset,” said Laura Meyer, a member of the Community Council for Beth Israel North, made up of concerned neighbors and organizations.

“The hospital has been in this neighborhood for many, many years,” she continued. “… It has been an integral part of the neighborhood.”

Mayer said “the enormous number of elderly people” in the area “count on the hospital.” State Sen. Liz Krueger said, “The good news for my district is we have quite a few excellent hospitals.” Krueger has a meeting scheduled with the Continuum to discuss the impact of planned closing.

The Beth Israel Medical Center is “a 1,368-bed, full-service tertiary teaching hospital” that was founded on East 16th Street in the late 19th Century, according to the Continuum Web site. Besides Singer, the center has four divisions: Petrie Division at 16th Street and First Avenue, Phillips Ambulatory Care Center in Union Square East between 14th and 15th Streets, Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing on 22nd Street between First and Second avenues, and one in Brooklyn.

Continuum has put the Singer building up for sale and would consider offers from commercial real-estate developers, Mandler said. No asking price has been announced. Darcy Stacom, executive vice president and partner of the CB Richard Ellis Investment Properties Group, is handling the deal.

There have been rumors that the Hospital for Special Surgery, which specializes in muskoskeletal at its facility, 535 E. 70th Street, has expressed interest in purchasing the building and converting it into a satellite ambulatory-care facility. Chris Godek, spokeswoman for the Hospital for Special Surgery said, “I can only say we’ve had a preliminary exploratory talks with Continuum.”

Assemb. Pete Grannis, who has already met with Continuum about the closing, said that if the Singer Division is closed, “from a community perspective” it would be preferable to have another health-care facility occupy the space.

Discussing the impact of the Beth Israel plan to close its Upper East Side facility, the assemblyman said, “The community is concerned about the loss of the readily accessed emergency room, which is not heavily used but is used.”

To close a building or transfer, the hospital needs the approval of the state of Department of Health.

“They are in discussions with us” regarding their options, agency spokesman Rob Kenny said of Continuum. “They have to maintain operation until we give approval.”

A developer would only need to go before the Department of City planning if plans were to extend the structure beyond the limits of the zoning law. Since City Planning has not received an application for that site, Rachaele Raynoff, spokeswoman for City Planning, discussed general structure requirements for the area.

A building must maintain a “similar character” to the surrounding structures and can have a maximum height of 210 feet, about 21 stories, Raynoff said.

A strategic planning committee, formed by the hospital’s board of trustees , started discussing plans for Continuum’s future, including the possibility of the sale, about six or eight months ago, according to Mandler. On May 17, the committee recommended the sale to the full 120-member board, which voted unanimously that night in favor of the idea, the spokesman said.

Before Beth Israel took over the East End Avenue building, it was the Doctors’ Hospital, which Mandler said first opened in 1929. Doctors’ was a luxurious hospital. Before completion, said an April 28, 1929 article in the New York Times, “The projected hospital will have 264 sick rooms, all private, and 32 guest rooms, for the convenience of relatives and close friends. There will be a restaurant for guests and convalescents.”

At the time, the article said, the holders of certificates of ownership in Doctors’ Hospital included many prominent people, among them Vincent Astor, Walter Chrysler, George Doubleday, Percy A. Rockefeller, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

The Singer Division has been neighborhood hospital. The majority of the E.R. patients come from within a 10-block radius, Mandler said. Celebrity patients at the Singer Division have included Michael Jackson, who was treated after fainting in 1995, and players with the New York Knicks and New York Yankees, said Mandler. Patients will be treated until the very last day, Mandler said.

Although the closure of the Singer Division would be a loss for those residing in its immediate vicinity, others noted there are several well-established institutions in the area.

“It’s not a situation at all where the only hospital in the community is closing,” said O’Brien of Lenox Hill. He also said: “Essentially you’ve got three major institutions serving the East Side providing the majority of the care to the East Side.”