Execs head for exits at beleaguered hosp
I sadly don’t have the most confidence in this plan because I feel like there are too many assumptions.
Three more top executives are leaving troubled Coney Island Hospital, The Post has learned.
Hospital CFO Paul Pandolfini, Associate Executive Director Cathy Sacks and Quality Management Director Laura Battaglia are all expected to be gone by July 2, either to other jobs or retirement, sources said.
The departures come just two months after four other high-level employees were reassigned or left following a Feb. 1 Emergency Room incident in which a patient died after being misdiagnosed.
“It’s a complete housecleaning,” one source said.
Meanwhile, the head of the entire municipal hospital network came under intense scrutiny Tuesday at a City Council budget hearing on the massive shortfalls facing the system, which includes Coney Island Hospital.
During the almost three-hour grilling, Health + Hospitals President Dr. Ramanathan Raju struggled to provide basic details about his agency’s plans to sell off land, pay down its debt and increase enrollment in its MetroPlus healthinsurance program. The 11-hospital system is projected to face a $1.8 billion deficit by 2020.
Councilman Corey Johnson suggested the agency’s spending plan isn’t “fully accurate or reasonable or realistic.”
“I am extremely, extremely con- cerned,” said Johnson (D-Manhattan),, chairman of the council’s Health Committee. “I sadly don’t have the most confidence in this plan, because I feel like there are too many assumptions.”
Among them is the administration’s projection of a $100 million cash infusion from selling off excess land by 2020.
When asked to detail the basis for that figure, Raju’s top financial officer, Plachikat Anantharam, admitted he’s uncertain how much land the agency actually owns.
He also defended Coney Island Hospital, saying he himself has been a patient there.
“My kids go to Coney Island Hospital for their care,” he said.
In March, the hospital’s Acting Executive Director Robert Hughes, Medical Director Dr. John Maese, Chief Nursing Officer Terry Mancher and Emergency Nursing Director Marie Longo all left following the disturbing emergency-room incident.
A patient, 47-year-old Grisel Soto, came to the hospital on Jan. 31 with pain in her ears. According to one source, hospital staffers “treated her like a psych patient.” Her family believes she may have been suffering from meningitis.
A day later, Soto died after going into cardiac arrest.
The hospital system issued a statement saying the executive departures had been expected as part of a plan to transform Coney “with new leadership at all levels.”