>HUMC asks state to consider new hospital in Westwood
Thursday, December 16, 2010
LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY DECEMBER 17, 2010, 10:34 AM
BY LINDY WASHBURN AND MARY JO LAYTON
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITERS
Hackensack University Medical Center opened a new front Thursday in its battle to reopen the old Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood, asking the state health commissioner to start fresh with a new application to operate a hospital there.
Its previous efforts to extend and transfer Pascack’s original license have been mired in the courts for nearly a year, so Hackensack is hoping that a sympathetic Christie administration will greenlight the project.
The papers filed by the medical center in Trenton late Thursday afternoon will be reviewed by the state Department of Health and Human Services, said its spokeswoman, Donna Leusner. “We could ask for additional information, we could reject the petition or we could accept the petition and publish a notice of call,” she said.
A call would allow organizations to file applications to “open a new acute care hospital” in Westwood. They would have to prove that the region needs more hospital beds and that an additional hospital would not harm nearby hospitals.
The two other Bergen County hospitals that oppose the reopening — The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center — immediately vowed to fight this new effort.
MORE:https://www.northjersey.com/news/health/121610_HUMC_asks_state_to_consider_new_hospital_in_Westwood.html
