BROOKLYN (VINnews) A group of influential Brooklyn politicians and community leaders have launched an unprecedented campaign, demanding accountability from Maimonides Hospital.
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On Friday, a letter was released, demanding answers from hospital leadership, for alleged fiscal mismanagement, staffing shortages, and a systemic lack of quality of care. It was signed by every local elected official representing the hospital.
Here is an excerpt:
We are concerned with the current management of Maimonides Medical Center. There have been multiple media reports of mismanagement of resources and our constituents have voiced their frustration with us about the lack of care Maimonides has provided to their families. This is unacceptable and untenable.
We have serious concerns about financial well-being of the hospital. We are aware of nurse shortages at the hospital and fear that it is due to financial mismanagement. If this is not corrected, we believe the hospital will lose patients due to poor care and exasperate the hospital’s financial status.
Once considered a pillar of the community, the hospital’s reputation has diminished considerably, and there have been countless complaints, including some horror stories, over the past number of years.
Ads have appeared in many local newspapers and on buses. In addition, a special website has been launched, where people can submit their complaints.
I had an emergency life and death situation. I was rushed to Maimonides Hospital where they charged me about $20,000 for admitting me and allowing me to stay for 3 hours in a room but the doctor did nothing except say he would be back, and he never came back. I discharged myself and took a car service to the ER at Mt Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. They did emergency surgery and saved my life. If you don’t want to die, don’t go to Maimonides.
I’ve never heard of a story with a happy outcome for an older patient at Maimonides.
Maimonides is a hospital? I thought it was a cemetery!
Nice that these politicians are showing concern, but this is exactly what Heshy Tischler was railing about for years. Would any of these politicians give a “shout out” to Heshy? I doubt it (and surely not S.F.!)
what’s the real story going on here. what happened?, who is pushing this campaign? and if true why is Maimonides performing so badly?
I know I’ll get a bunch of thumbs down for this, BUT from my own personal experience I can attest that MMC is not any worse than any other hospital. MMC is not a 5-star hotel it is a hospital, and the nurses are not our “goytas”.
My niece is l”a a vegetable because of a mistake in Mt. Sinai Hospital and My wife’s grandmother died in another Manhattan hospital when someone forgot to reattach an oxygen tank. I broke my hand a few years ago at 10:00pm. My friend took me Lutheran, I waited from 10:30 until 1am to get an x-ray read (and only because the patient rep. helped me). At 4:30am I just left without a Dr. ever seeing me. MMC’s problem is US. For better or worse we are a very close-knit community – When one yid has a problem It becomes everyone’s problem. One friend talks to one friend who talks to another friend and each one feels as he himself experienced the problem. And the fact that 30 yrs. ago a certain Rebbi told his chasidim not to go to MMC doesn’t help MMC either. There is nothing MMC can do to change this fact. Of course, MMC isn’t perfect, it is unacceptable to have to wait hours in the ER and then again for a bed, however at all other hospitals if someone has a problem who really cares. The word of mouth doesn’t spread as fast in the non jewish community like in ours. I had 2 surgeries in MMC. My children had surgeries here. After my first surgery I spent 1 week in the hospital. 5 of my children k”h were born here. My wife needed emergency surgery and spent a week in the ICU. In every single case I was overall happy with the service. Again I will say MMC can improve, and it doesn’t help that the CEO gets a paycheck of over a million plus. I won’t doubt or minimize anyone’s bad experience, but to say it worse than any other hospital I beg to differ. H-shem should help that all the cholim should have a refua shelaima, and we should never need the services of any hospital.
MMC president kenneth Gibbs makes $2.5 MILLION per year and his Lower guys make only $1 MILLION that’s where the money is
We know it’s not a great hospital , but why now ? Yeddidim ___ I smell something . Suddenly ? It’s been going downhill for years.
Maimonides will never change, they spend a lot of money on PR the top VPs there make big money, and pay people off to say nice stuff about it, while maintaining a very low standard because it’s cost effective.
I have lived in this neighborhood for decades. In the 1980s, 1990s, it was a very good hospital, the staff cared about patients from the community. Most doctors and nurses did their jobs. By 2005, the hospital’s reputation was declining quickly Since we live in the community, we would talk about the lack of care by the new staff, the horror stories of mistakes that took peoples’ lives, about incompetent doctors and nurses who should have had their licenses revoked, but they weren’t even disciplined. The few times that discipline occurred was when it was a prominent member of the community, a known Rabbi with a large family behind him, a wealthy businessman. For the average in patient who died because of neglect or a blatant error, there was cover up. Maimonides Hospital hit rock bottom before Covid. During Covid it was one of the worst hospitals in NYC. Hatzalah members knew how terrible it was, the lack of nursing care, the attitude of the staff, and they recommended that we go to an other hospital. During Covid, I lost friends, neighbors due to the neglect of patient care by nurses, aides, and doctors. We weren’t allowed to see our loved ones because of Covid rules, but not even water was given to the patients by staff members. Everyday I came with bottles of water and tipped a guard to bring the water bottles to my loved ones. Shame on this hospital for letting their patients die of thirst before Covid took them. Changing the name of this hospital will do nothing. An investigation is long overdo. I hope the investigation doesn’t become another cover up .Council members are worried about the finances and I am livid about the deaths of my friends and neighbors because of neglect and incompetence.
I look forward to this investigation. Today, despite living very short distance from Maimonides, I travel up to 4 hours a day, 2 hours to a hospital two hours home, pay for parking in a hospital garage, because I refuse to go to Maimonides. I know too many people who died there because of careless mistakes and neglect. If you want your community to use a local hospital, get rid of the staff from the top down.
I have had one very happy outcome. My father had a cardiac arrest and was on a ventilator for ten days. Dr Hollander and Dr Gitelis did an amazing job. He bh walked out of there in perfect health.
Then in 2003 my grandfather was chocked and eventually died by an incompetent nurse who didn’t follow procedures when feeding him.
I think the story is , the nurses are horrible but cardio and the drs are good . The cicu is the top
This is the worst hosp even in Uganda they treat you better
A senior manager at Maimonides told me this – we are a business and we operate as such, we are not here to help or to heal, but to make money. Don’t believe me? Look at our executives, they earn millions of dollars in salary while they don’t even have enough nurses and general staff on the floors. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t understand why this campaign is being done now when Maimonides has a very long history of bad health care. Where were these askanim many years ago?? Something tells me there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than we are now led to believe.
Its all true…. but there is more…Maimonides management treats the staff like so poorly…Staff cant even get pens, tape, staples etc to do there jobs. Being told its not in the budget…Management on all levels think they are above reproach. The people who do the work do there jobs are treated like poo when management doesn’t even know how the place runs. Management sit in there offices pretending that they work they sit on zoom calls laughing at there staff calling them dumb say they are lucky to be working and giving themself raises and titles. My senior manager lets the staff down daily she will walk by a ringing phone and not answer it saying i dont get paid to answer phones. Its so bad you can not even Imagine.
With all due respect to the volunteer members of Hatzolah – any investigation would be incomplete without holding Hatzolah accountable if they have been promoting either Maimonides in Boro Park and the “Maimonides Midwood” (formerly NYCH). Maimonides was (Hatzolah Flatbush Building Dedication) and continues to be a sponsor to Hatzolah.
As a resident near the latter, I don’t recall seeing Hatzolah dropping patients at NYCH until the affiliation agreement between Maimonides and NYCH. I cannot say with any degree of certainty what happened, but it deserves attention.
With Parshas Shoftim around the corner, it behooves us to remember that bribery blinds the righteous. Hatzolah should reject any corporate interests. The daf will shortly learn that Chazal (Ksubos 22b) has taught us to stay away from suspect behavior as it says הסר ממך עקשות פה ולזות שפתים הרחק ממך (Proverbs 4:24).
Again, I thank the volunteers of Hatzolah and salute them for their dedication to our community saving countless lives in the critical first minutes.
Boro Park is known on of the largest frum Yiddish community. So does BP habitats many wealthy from yidden who are known for their tzeduka v’chesed. But did we ever see any heimishe yid to donate – share the financial burden of a such needed facility in this community? The question is, why is the hospital going through financial distress? Why isn’t their any heimishe face in the Board of Directors? Where are we? Why are we letting go such an institution??? Instead of criticizing management – let’s get together and make serious changes to the better of the community and at the same time have a positive outreach to the community at large.
Why did they allow 5G towers to be built right outside the hospital? They clearly messed with the ventilators and killed many people.