The Washington Adventist Hospital is pulling up its Takoma Park stakes and is headed north to Calverton, leaving another hospital worried about the loss of emergency services near downtown Silver Spring.
“We’re not opposed to Washington Adventist building a new hospital,” Eileen Cahill, a rep for Holy Cross Hospital in Forest Glen, told Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board Monday night. “But Washington Adventist’s move from a needed service area is our concern.”
Currently, three hospitals in Montgomery County operate emergency rooms near downtown Silver Spring — Holy Cross, Washington Adventist, and Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. But the county’s planning board recently gave Washington Adventist a pat on the back to develop a new 48-acre campus near Cherry Hill Road and Route 29. According to a press statement, Washington Adventist will maintain some healthcare services on its Takoma Park campus, though whether that includes emergency care is unclear.
Washington Adventist’s proposed move could be hard on Holy Cross, which serves a large number of older adults and immigrants, Cahill said. “The ER will be overwhelmed,” she warned.
Cahill also worried that an urgent-care facility proposed for Washington Adventist’s Takoma Park campus wouldn’t do enough to ease the expected overcrowding at Holy Cross. Urgent care “is good for getting stitches, but if you have a heart issue, they need to call an ambulance,” Cahill said.
Holy Cross Hospital now hopes the county will pick up the tab for a health-impact study, which could run between $100,000 and $200,000, Cahill estimated. In the meantime, Washington Adventist waits for the county’s hearing examiner and board of appeals to okay its relocation.
Penguin editor Ron Pace contributed to this article.
Lead photo courtesy of Flickr user Paulo Arrivabene.
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The Post has a wonderful story about Washington Adventist opening a clinic with the Mary’s Center in Long Branch. This shows the commitment Washington Adventist has to the area. The combination of health services at the desperately needed new hospital, plus what they leave behind will only help our area with more medical services. No one needs to worry about Holy Cross.
Editor’s note: This comment was edited for content. — JD (May 16, 2008)
I live not far from Adventist. I think I’ll miss the sound of ambulances in the middle of the night…
Holy Cross is only concerned about their bottom line. They made millions last year and are headed to making millions this year. How much do they give to community groups? If anyone on this blog has recently been to Washington Adventist you have seen how desperately they need a new hospital. The Calverton location is in the center of the community they serve (41% of their patients come from Prince George’s County). Holy Cross needs to get over it- the population is growing and a new hospital is needed. Or perhaps Holy Cross would prefer that Washington Adventist simply close their doors.
Holy Cross indeed only cares about its bottom line — and I know exactly what that hospital do if they get overrun with senior citizens. Its called covert rationing.
Holy Cross hospital was cited numerous times over the past few years by the Maryland Office of Health Care Quality for failing to heed seniors’ wishes regarding end-of-life treatment, and for failing to fill out the forms required to protect the elderly before withholding or withdrawing treatment. Some examples:
April 4, 2007 deficiency
September 17, 2008 deficiency