>https://www.northjersey.com/news/health/Hospitals_ask_state_to_dismiss_bid.html
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Last updated: Saturday June 20, 2009, 1:56 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
NorthJersey.com
STAFF WRITER
In the latest challenge to Hackensack University Medical Center’s bid to reopen Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood, two Bergen County hospitals have demanded that the state health commissioner dismiss the application on legal grounds.
“The application fails to meet many significant and irrefutable requirements for the submission of a Certificate of Need application,” reads the 14-page letter, with voluminous attachments, from attorney Frank R. Ciesla to Health Commissioner Heather Howard. Ciesla wrote on behalf of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.
“These requirements cannot be waived,” he wrote, “and we request that the application be dismissed at this time.”
Hackensack wants to reopen the hospital — which closed in November 2007 — as a 128-bed community hospital operated by a joint venture with Legacy Hospital Partners Inc. of Texas, a for-profit company.
A public hearing on the certificate of need application was held this month. The state Health Planning Board is to consider the application and recommend a decision to the health commissioner, who will then have 120 days to act.
Ciesla argued that “the State Health Planning Board’s review cannot continue at this time,” because it would violate state regulatory standards.
Not so, said Hackensack’s spokeswoman, Anne Marie Campbell. The application was “deemed complete” by the state Health Department, she said.
“We feel we have made a convincing case that a 128-bed hospital is needed in the Pascack and Northern Valley regions — a case that has received widespread public support,” she said. “We look forward to continuing the process.”
Ciesla’s letter said the application should be dismissed for several reasons, including:
* Under state law, a hospital’s license expires when the hospital ceases to function, he wrote. As a result, a letter from the previous state health commissioner “which purported to permit the license to remain valid for two years is void and of no force.”
* The application was signed by Hackensack’s chief executive officer and not by the joint venture that proposes to own and operate the hospital, as required, Ciesla wrote. Indeed, the joint venture agreement itself is still not final, but a letter of intent. The limited liability corporation that would own the hospital was registered as a business five months after the application was filed, he wrote.
* The applicant has to demonstrate it owns the site. Hackensack bought the property jointly with Touro University, which still retains its share even though it has decided not to open a medical school on the site. Touro did not endorse Hackensack’s application or sign off on the property, he wrote.
The health commissioner’s office said it would have no comment.
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