>Opponents file dozens of documents in bid to block Pascack Valley’s reopening
By Beth Fitzgerald
With state Health Commissioner Mary E. O’Dowd expected to decide next month whether Pascack Valley Hospital, in Westwood, should be reopened by Hackensack University Medical Center, opponents on Friday released dozens of documents and a lengthy statement arguing there is no need for the facility’s 128 additional hospital beds, which they say will harm Bergen County hospitals that are now stronger financially in the wake of Pascack’s 2007 closure.
The statement, by Englewood Hospital and Medical Center to O’Dowd, also raised questions about Hackensack UMC’s for-profit partner in the new hospital, Texas-based Legacy Hospital Partners. According to the statement, the current chairman and CEO of Legacy “were executives with Columbia/HCA (now HCA) in the 1990s, when Columbia/HCA was implicated in the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history. At the time, these executives were supervising dozens of Columbia/HCA hospitals found guilty of Medicare fraud. The aggregate fines and penalties totaled $1.7 billion — the largest amount ever assessed for Medicare fraud.
