Why moving Monmouth Medical Center out of Long Branch is so harmful

Regarding "Monmouth Medical Center is not closing. We are re-organizing," app.com, Oct. 23:

RWJ Barnabas has applied to the New Jersey Department of Health to relocate the Monmouth Medical Center hospital in Long Branch to Tinton Falls.

Don't let RWJ Barnabas fool the public. The application is to transfer the hospital license. Whatever they keep in Long Branch cannot include services of an acute care hospital like major surgery, delivery of babies, ICU or anything that requires a hospital stay overnight for care.

What they are leaving behind in Long Branch does not qualify as a hospital. A satellite emergency room. Some outpatient care for same day procedures. Facilities for behavioral health. But, without an acute care hospital license, all of the outpatient care, even the emergency room can eventually be closed.

Monmouth Medical Center hospital in Long Branch is one of New Jersey's strongest hospitals. Newsweek ranked it the second-best hospital in the entire RWJ Barnabas system and one of the best in the state. It has served families here for 135 years. Meanwhile, RWJ Barnabas calls itself a nonprofit, yet its CEO takes home $7 million every year while they strip services from a community that relies on this hospital for everything from childbirth to acute care.

RWJ Barnabas's own paperwork confirms it. As much as 80% of the staff will be transferred to Tinton Falls. The Long Branch campus will essentially be an ambulatory care center for patients who do not need hospitalization. They say this will expand access, but their plan makes care harder to reach for thousands of people in the Long Branch area

They even claim they will provide free rides to Tinton Falls. As if calling an ambulance means waiting for a shuttle. As if a senior without a car can make that trip during summer traffic when every minute matters.

Local officials see the danger. The Red Bank Borough Council passed a resolution opposing this plan, warning that it will drain resources from Riverview Medical Center and deepen and widen health care deserts. The Long Branch City Council passed one too. They know what happens when a big hospital abandons lower income areas. Smaller hospitals like Riverview get swamped and patients lose care.

If the state signs off on this, every hospital system in New Jersey will learn the same lesson. Walk away from the communities that need you and chase the ones that can pay more.

Please join me in speaking out to save Monmouth Medical Center Hospital in Long Branch.

Health care belongs to the people who depend on it, not the corporations that profit from it.