An agreement has been reached in a months-long dispute over Monmouth County hospital licenses that created a rift between Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) and outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy last fall.
Yesterday afternoon, the state commissioner of health approved a plan from RWJBarnabas Health that would shift a hospital license away from Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch to a new facility in the nearby suburb of Tinton Falls. The original plan to move the license out of Long Branch, a poorer and more diverse city, prompted a harsh reaction from Pallone and led to outcry at several public meetings.
The new agreement, however, also requires that Monmouth Medical Center’s emergency department and outpatient services be maintained indefinitely. And the state legislature, meanwhile, is working on a pilot program that would allow acute care services to also remain in operation at the Long Branch facility for ten years.
A bill establishing that program, sponsored by Long Branch’s local state legislators, passed out of Assembly and Senate committees last night over the objections of some Republican legislators. Pallone said he anticipates it will come before the full legislature, and pass, before the lame duck session ends next week.
All in all, Pallone – who had exploded at Murphy’s administration when an earlier plan to keep hospital services intact in Long Branch fell through – told the New Jersey Globe that he was happy with how willing Murphy and RWJBarnabas Health were to work with him on finding an acceptable solution.
After one of the public hearings, Pallone said, “I called [Murphy], and I said, ‘This is terrible. I know that you care about low-income people, I know you’re familiar with the Long Branch hospital. You’ve got to help us out.’ And this is how he helped us to try to achieve this.”
“No one was ever opposed to building a new hospital in Tinton Falls,” Pallone continued. “We just didn’t want to lose those acute-care hospital services in Long Branch. That was the rub.”
George Helmy, a former interim U.S. Senator and now the executive vice president at RWJBarnabas Health, similarly praised Pallone and Murphy in a statement on the new agreement.
“RWJBarnabas Health remains steadfast in its commitment to transforming health care throughout Monmouth County,” Helmy said. “This includes our promise to [maintain] essential services in Long Branch and [develop] world-class facilities at the Vogel Medical Campus in Tinton Falls. This has always been our mission, and we have never wavered.”