HOSPITALS OFFERING LUXURY FOR THE WEALTHY
tique mahogany rather than contemporary sleek, and the best room costs $1,600, William Duffy, the hospital’s director of hospitality, noted that his favorite entree is Colorado rack of lamb, adding, “We pride ourselves on getting anything the patient wants. If they have a craving for lobster tails and we don’t have them on the menu, we’ll go out and get them.”
The 19-room unit, which opened 18 years ago but received a recent facelift, takes in $3.5 million a year, Duffy said, estimating that 30 percent of its clientele comes from abroad. If the ER is backed up, a regular patient may be upgraded, he added: “Bump ’em up to Business, as we say.”
Wayne Keathley, Mount Sinai’s president, minimized the unit’s role in the 1,171-bed hospital, on Fifth Avenue at 101st Street. “It is not nearly as large or elaborate as some others,” Keathley said. He called the money it brought in “a rounding error in my budget,” and said that patients came for the clinical care, not amenities.
In Eleven West’s library on a recent Friday, Nancy Hemenway, a senior financial services executive, was reading the paper in a spa-style bathrobe. “I was supposed to be in Buenos Aires last week taking tango lessons, but unfortunately I hurt my back, so I’m here with my concierge,” she said.
“I’m perfectly at home here — totally private, totally catered,” she added. “I have a primary care physician who also acts as ringmaster for all my other doctors. And I see no people in training — only the best of the best.”
Increasingly, hospitals serving the merely well-off are joining the amenities race. Beth Israel Medical Center near Union Square added a “deluxe unit” in 2008, catering mainly to patients after elective orthopedic surgery. The green-carpeted lobby may be more Radisson than Ritz, but its 12 single rooms starting at $450 feature Bose stereos, flat-screen TVS and mini-refrigerators, and chefprepared kosher food is served on blue china.
“A very insignificant portion of our beds are identified as deluxe accommodations,” said Gail Donovan, the chief operating officer of Continuum Partners, which includes Beth Israel and St. Luke’s — Roosevelt Hospital. “Our mission is really to be the safety net hospitals of our communities.”
The conflicts echo those of a century ago, in another era of growing income inequality and financial crisis, said David Rosner, a professor of public health and history at Columbia University. Hospitals, founded as free, charitable institutions to rehabilitate the poor, began seeking paying patients for the first time in the 1890s, he said, restyling themselves in part as “hotels for rich invalids.”
“Every generation of hospitals reflects our attitude about health and disease and wealth and poverty,” Rosner said. “Today, they pride themselves on attracting private patients, and on the other hand ask for our tax dollars based upon their older charitable mission. There’s a conflict there at times.”