CAPITOL Nursing home move an option Glendale would be at St. Clare’s Hospital site BY BOB CONNER Gazette Reporter
Moving the Glendale nursing home to the current site of St. Clare’s Hospital is one of the options being considered by Schenectady County officials as they try to meet the mandates of the state’s Berger Commission law. The law, adopted as an effort to cut healthcare costs throughout the state, directs the county to reduce the number of nursing home beds it operates. It has also ordered Ellis and St. Clare’s hospitals in Schenectady to merge administrations and Bellevue Woman’s Hospital in Niskayuna to shut down. Schenectady County Legislature Chairwoman Susan Savage, DNiskayuna, said Wednesday that the county is applying for $55 million from the state to either build a new nursing home or to buy or lease the St. Clare’s property. The state Health Department on Wednesday said it has received $2.5 billion in applications statewide for the $550 million available in state and federal funding to implement the Berger law. If the county builds new, she said, it would not be at the current Glendale site on Hetcheltown Road in Glenville but at a location with better bus service. The goal is to sell the current Glendale site, she said. The Berger commission directs the county to reduce the number of Glendale’s certified nursing home beds from 360 to 168, closing all but the newest building there. Savage said that building lacks crucial facilities. The Berger law also calls for cutbacks at other nursing homes in Schenectady and Albany counties, and they, too, are seeking Health Department funding to comply. Health Department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton declined to comment on Schenectady County’s proposals. Savage said the county might need the entire St. Clare’s site for a nursing home, but that would not lead to a shortage of hospital beds in the area if Bellevue Woman’s Hospital in Niskayuna were to remain open. Ceil Mack, spokeswoman for St. Clare’s Hospital, said the county proposal to put a nursing home there was discussed at a meeting attended by St. Clare’s CEO Robert Perry. “It was accepted in that light as an idea and nothing more,” Mack said. “ It’s not something that has been considered at this point in time.” St. Clare’s is working with Ellis on implementing the Berger report and will look for guidance from the state, Mack said. Regarding the county proposal, she said, “Everything is on the table.” County Legislator Dr. Brian Gordon, DNiskayuna, chairman of the Health Committee and co-chairman of a committee on the Glendale Home, said St. Clare’s needs money to meet its $34 million unfunded pension obligations and could get it through a sale or long-term lease to the county. Beth Krueger, a spokeswoman for the joint effort to merge Ellis and St. Clare’s hospitals, said the hospitals submitted two proposals to the state, one calling for a new hospital and one for a new women’s and children’s center on the Ellis campus. She declined to say how much either option would cost. But Gordon has previously estimated the cost of a new hospital at between $300 million and $500 million. The proposal for a new hospital is unrealistic, Gordon said, because the state is not going to give Schenectady County most of the statewide funds available to implement Berger. Gordon said that some hospital services might be maintained at St. Clare’s if the county moved the nursing home there and that the county was interested in pursuing the option whether or not Bellevue remains open. Savage said the county did not include the St. Clare’s option in its formal proposal to the Health Department, which called for building a new 240-bed nursing home, but has discussed it with Health Department officials. St. Clare’s has 200 beds. Bellevue also is applying for a share of the available money. County and state legislators have urged that Bellevue remain open, and a bill to exempt it from the Berger law passed in the Senate but not the Assembly in June.
There's a lot of money going to be spent to develop the hospital consolidation plan yet the clinic that cares for the poor without health care insurance is going bankrupt.
I was talking with someone who works at st. clares and she said that some employees have 'jumped ship' already. She said that the ways she looks at it, she will have to work 'somewhere' be it st. clares, glendale or ellis...she said they will still need the staffing.
I was talking with someone who works at st. clares and she said that some employees have 'jumped ship' already. She said that the ways she looks at it, she will have to work 'somewhere' be it st. clares, glendale or ellis...she said they will still need the staffing.
There is always a body for the bed......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Spoke to a nurse from St.Clares and they told me that nurse's are getting cancelled(called out by admin) left and right due to dropped census.....
Okay nursey, what does getting cancelled mean? Did you mean fired, laid off, let go?
I think what senders is saying (and please, correct me if I'm wrong), is that their bosses are calling THEM before they get to work, tellng the nurse, "You're sick, don't come to work."
Or.."Your services are not needed during your schedule time. Go spend some time with your children..."
Proud Rotterdam Resident Proud Patriot Proud Conservative Republican Proud Christian
BigK has it correct....dont come to work today....nothing for you to do and we wont pay you......your next scheduled day come in unless we call and tell you not to......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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