The closest hospital to me is DePaul. The non-profit facility has served the community since 1855 and was Norfolk’s first public hospital. From that point, the facility was operated by the Daughters of Charity, an order of nuns. The hospital moved to its current Granby Street location in 1944 and in 1996, sponsorship of the hospital was transferred from the sisters of the Daughters of Charity to Bon Secours.
Any facility in service for 64 years no doubt has its issues. The hospital has 238 beds and serves some of the Norfolk’s neediest residents. Bon Secours has proposed tearing down the facility and replacing it with a 64-bed facility, with the remainder of the rooms being redistributed to new facilities in Virginia Beach and Suffolk. Initially, the City of Norfolk supported the proposal, but has changed its mind.
The city has withdrawn its support for a proposal to radically downsize the Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center and is instead calling for a 134-bed hospital with fully functioning emergency, obstetric and intensive care facilities.
The state had already rejected Bon Secours plans back in March. In its ruling, deputy health commissioner Dr. James Burns said:
The three DePaul projects would effectively divide an existing acute care hospital, upon which many residents of Norfolk rely, and replace it with a facility in Norfolk of far smaller scope and curtailed service, thereby significantly reducing patient access to vital services.
Bon Secours has appealed the state’s ruling. In the wake of this, a new group has been formed. DePaul Emergency 134 is dedicated to seeing that Norfolk keeps a full-service facility and is supportive of the city’s efforts to have the facility be 134 beds. As is generally the case, time is of the essence: the hearing on Bon Secours’ appeal will be held July 18.
On the group’s website you will find a list of people who should be contacted in advance of the hearing. It is critical that the voices of Norfolk’s residents be heard.
The public hearing will be July 18 at 10:00am at the Chesapeake LifeStyle Center
And be sure to contact the folks over at DePaul Emergency 134 and let them know that they have your support. Thanks in advance from those of us in this part of the city.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Thank you for sharing this.
I am extremely disappointed with DePaul’s efforts and hope that DePaulemergency134 is successful.
DePaul has been using the Catholic diocese’s newsletter “The Catholic Virginian” to “sell” the 64 bed facility and making it a “faith” issue.
Nothing could be further from the truth. What will hurt the poor and the needy more than this?
Perhaps someone can educate me. Is Depaul’s motivation an attempt to escape servicing an area that does not pay for the services rendered? Are nonpaying consumers of the services provided threatening their financial solvency?
You can not force them to keep their doors open. If they can not break even, you can not force them to continue to hemorrhage.
One more argument for some kind of broad, long term solution to the health care crisis that our society is facing.
I find it interesting that Bon Secours is pleading poverty in spite of their many years an a nonprofit, tax-free entity. Maybe one reason for their financial situation is they’ve been turning away paying patients. I was in Depaul for several weeks last year. I’d had serious surgery and required extensive therapy and follow-up care. I had full insurance coverage and my first choice was DePaul but was repeatedly told, up until the very last minute, that they had no room for me. In talking about this with my fellow patients I found they were having the same problem. Yet when I got there I couldn’t help but notice all the empty beds. And during the the weeks I was there quite often there were more empty beds than full ones. At no time were they completely full. If they were hurting for money so badly why were they in effect turning away paying patients with full insurance coverage? Was this some preplanned and misguided effort to minimize their income and substantiate thier claims? It makes one wonder, doesn’t it?
I live in a neighborhood consisting mostly of elderly people such as myself. In talking with my neighbors about this issue of downsizing DePaul from a full sized, full service hospital to what amounts to nothing more than a fairly large clinic has every one I’ve talked to outraged. We are all going to make phone calls and write letters to as many people as we can until somone in authority realizes this is a serious mistake.
Even non-profit entities can’t carry a loss indefinitely.
I’m sure the shortage of nurses plays some part.
Also, will someone please explain what kind of a backward, dysfunctional regulatory system pits the growing Kempsville/Landstown areas against established areas of Norfolk in some weird competition for Bon Secours hospital beds?
My understanding is that Bon Secours got turned down when it requested a facility off Princess Anne Road. Interestingly, Sentara seemed to have no problem at all getting approval for a new facility off Princess Anne Road about two miles away, on land that was originally City soccer fields. (The Virginian-Pilot repeatedly breathlessly promised us that the jobs at this facility would pay “an average” of $80,000 a year. Anybody checked to see if that promise has materialized?)
Who decided this growing area doesn’t need more medical care, prompting Bon Secours to cut back in Norfolk? If the VB population has grown, why is the state limiting services? And don’t Virginia Beach residents deserve some alternative to the Sentara “non-profit” monopoly?
I can see why DePaul and Maryview might not be the most profitable combination. What I can’t see are the reasons for the artificial limitations in growing suburban areas that might allow Bon Secours to continue to operate in Norfolk and Portsmouth at the previous level.
Bon Secours has been bearing the brunt of the uninsured for quite a while. While it is their mission, they can’t continue fulfilling it without some profit. The hospital can’t operate at a loss. I’m all for a new facility. So many beds are currently unused that it leads to inefficiencies.
What is most upsetting about this “DePaul Emergency 134” group is that it clearly wasn’t formed by a group of citizens. Sentara is trying to keep DePaul from reducing its bed size because they don’t want to take on additional uninsured patients (even though, as a system, they have enough profitable services to balance it out). This group smacks of the combined efforts of the City, a PR firm and Sentara. Of course the City wants to protect its crown jewel of a hospital (Norfolk General). But, if you really want DePaul to continue to provide services, you should support their efforts to reduce the number of beds to 64. It’s a private company, not a city hospital. If they are forced to operate at a loss, I wouldn’t blame them if they decided to close the hospital altogether.
But, I think we all know that Sentara has deep enough pockets to make this a really nasty fight (i.e. financing this fake citizens group that I understand was formed by a local PR firm)…this isn’t about Bon Secours and the citizens of Norfolk. It’s about the perpetuation of the Sentara monopoly.
I think that the post above from “TalbotHall” is full of garbage, BonSecours has been making plenty of money across the Commonwealth of Virginia…
if you look at their profits in Richmond as well as Maryview and MaryImmaclate, they make more profit on a percentage basis than Sentara; so lets look for deep pockets in the mirror first! From what I hear around my neighborhood in Talbot Park is that DePaul is intentionally being sabotaged by Bon Secours so they can justify moving the hospital out to Virginia Beach and make more money there. So much for their mission, pretty pathetic…
TalbotHall(Bon Secours PR person) should focus more on their issues instead of blaming their problems on others.
I’ve been reviewing the information on the DePaul Emergency 134 site.
1) What is the background of Mr. Bruce Holbrook? Was the site created from part of a PR firm? I notice that Mr. Holbrook gave a financial contribution to Winn, the Norfolk councilman. Why not donate funds (including Goodman & Company) to DePaul to keep it open?
2) From people who work at DePaul (front line people, who see this daily), Sentara sends over their “charity” cases. If they wanted to service everyone, then why send charity cases to DePaul?
3) What is the traveling distance between DePaul & Sentara Norf. Gen.? Other facilities are just as close or roughly the same distance, aren’t they?
4) On the website is the quote, “If you care about full access to hospital and emergency room services in Norfolk, we ask that you please do the following” if you do a Google search, there’s more than one hospital in Norfolk. This makes it sound like DP the only one, misleading. If someone wants people to buy into this cause, I don’t think this is the way to do it.
5) If it hadn’t been for the link from the 134 website, I would have never known about Vivian Paige. So I’m not sure where the phrase “Influential blogger Vivian Paige came from. That appears to be an exaggeration. Again, is this something that would make me want to buy into the cause? No.
6) DePaul has had to consider whether or not to close a group down or not because staff was leaving & shifts couldn’t be covered. Am I correct in assuming that partially covered shifts is what people want?
7) How can Mr. Holbrook justify the following w/facts & figures:
“it will become harder to find an available hospital room in Norfolk and getting into an emergency department will be very difficult”
“there won’t be enough hospital and emergency department capacity in the city to meet the public’s need”
“Many people will face long waits to obtain care or hospitalization and may in fact have to go to hospitals outside of Norfolk.”
“Soon, if Bon Secours has its way, many people, especially the indigent and elderly, will have nowhere to turn”
This is for starters, but many general statements are made making it sound like DePaul is the only hospital in Norfolk. It is not. These are alarmist statements, stirring up emotions, but without business data to base decisions on.
8) “Bon Secours should be able to attain a reasonable profit”. Define reasonable.
9) “This would enable DePaul Medical Center to continue serving its mission and its clientele in Norfolk.” Why can’t Sentara service the charity cases who go there?
10) “Unfortunately, Bon Secours has invested very little in DePaul since acquiring it and this is a big reason that DePaul has deteriorated. During this time, other area hospitals have invested substantially in improving their facilities to provide quality medical care and remain competitive.” With what funds is this being proposed? If your major function is to treat the poor, where do you suggest the funds come from? If you have to pay support staff in the 21st century that you didn’t in the 19th century, and equipment never dreamed of when the mission statement was started, how are you supposed to upgrade the hospital?
11) “Bon Secours’ focus on profits is a disgrace to the legacy of the sisters who founded DePaul in the 19th century. It contradicts Bon Secours’ own mission statement, which reads, in part, “to provide compassionate quality health care services to those in need, including the poor and the dying.” ” That mission statement was written by nuns who did not envision nurses, housework, and other professionals doing the work in the hospital instead of nuns, nor would they have envisioned the changes in healthcare in 150 years.
12) “Bon Secours says it has been losing so much money at DePaul Medical Center that unless its plan is approved, it won’t be able to continue to operate in Norfolk at all. Bon Secours’ own financial data shows this is not true.”
I believe you will soon start to see that DePaul is telling the truth about its financial situation. When personnel leave for jobs with lesser pay, you won’t have staff to support the hospital, and divisions will start to shutter. I suggest you start taking a look at what happened in Texas, with hospitals who were servicing a large illegal immigrant population, who obviously could not pay for services as insured Americans did.
Rachel B.
Just curious, Rachel B – do you work for the PR department at Bon Secours? Lots of pot shots at individuals in that post of yours. Interesting, since you want to hide your name.
Secondly, if you feel so strongly about this, why waste your time posting on my non-influential blog? Why not send your message to someone who you think might be influential?
Hey, Rachel. You want to astroturf, go ahead. You’ll be shown for the fraud you likely are soon enough. But you might really want to reconsider taking aim at your host, here. No matter what you real name is, I’m pretty comfortable in laying a bet that it doesn’t garner as much respect as Vivian’s name. So until you can change that, I’d invite you to step right the fuck off in attacking her stature.
Rachel,
Vivian’s blog has won accolades as being amongst the most influential in Virginia politics from what I understand. You can agree or disagree and you can always open up a blog of your own and attempt to eclipse her blog’s influence. Good luck.
But I am motivated to once again speak up from the alternative viewpoint.
If Depaul chooses to close up completely because the alternatives they are offered are unacceptable, there is nothing to stop them from doing so.
Seems to me they negotiate from a position of strength. If you force them into an “all or nothing” decision, the decision might be nothing.
1. I think Vivian’s influential enough.
2. Again, why is Kempsville forced to compete with Norfolk, and vice versa? Sounds like we all need these hospital beds, and some alternative to Sentara’s aggressive monopoly. The state regulatory system is what’s messed up. It has failed in its most essential mission, to protect the public.
3. One thing I have learned the hard way is, everybody has a boss. Figure out what state official made the original decision, and go to his or her boss.
spotter,
I think the long term answer is a broad solution to Ameirca’s health care crisis.
When even a not for profit entity says they can’t break even in a given area, I think this signals a problem.
If the for profit hospitals are going to send all of the basket cases towards Depaul, how long are you going to insist that those that exist upon charity are going to be answer the deluge of demand placed upon them?
Double Post.
Not for Profit does not need to mean eternally losing money.
Lil, Sentara operates as a supposedly non-profit entity. Time to hold them accountable to that promise, too.