Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Medical lab in Monroe set to close
People who use Orange Regional Medical Center's Arden Hill Hospital Patient Service Center on Millpond Parkway will have to find another place to get their lab tests done.
Rob Lee, spokesman for Orange Regional Medical Center, which owns the lab, said there were structural issues with the building that made adding updated lab equipment too costly.
"It would be cost-prohibitive for us to make the necessary renovations to maintain the additional high level of technical excellence," he said. "It's a business decision, essentially."
The lab, at 52 Millpond Parkway, which serves a high number of Medicare and Medicaid patients, will shutter its doors on Dec. 28.
The closure will come as a blow to many residents in the Monroe-Woodbury area without cars, including Hasidic women from the Village of Kiryas Joel who can't drive, recent immigrants and seniors. The only other lab in the Monroe-Woodbury area is a private one on Gilbert Street.
Former Harriman Justice Philip Caiazza, however, said that lab is too small for the needs of the area and is not as flexible in processing patients. Caiazza has become the unofficial spokesman for those protesting the closure of the Orange Regional facility, where he goes for blood work every two weeks.
Caiazza, who is nearly blind, relies on the Town of Monroe's Dial-a-Bus to take him from his doorstep to the lab a few miles from his house, he said. With the lab's slated closure, he would have to go to either Orange Regional's diagnostic center on Hatfield Lane in Goshen or Orange Regional's Medical Pavilion in the Town of Wallkill, he said.
Since there are no buses that go door-to-door to the Goshen facility, the 70-year-old Caiazza said his wife of 48 years would have to drive him to Wallkill.
"We're not young. I try to get around on my own as best I can. But now here's another hardship," Caiazza said. "I mean, we don't do this once every two or three months; we have to do this every two weeks."
The closure came mixed with irony for Caiazza, whose wife, Maria, once served on the board of directors and did fundraising for what was once Arden Hill Hospital, and is now the Goshen campus of Orange Regional.
"People down here have been hung out to dry," Caiazza said.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071113/NEWS/711130316
People who use Orange Regional Medical Center's Arden Hill Hospital Patient Service Center on Millpond Parkway will have to find another place to get their lab tests done.
Rob Lee, spokesman for Orange Regional Medical Center, which owns the lab, said there were structural issues with the building that made adding updated lab equipment too costly.
"It would be cost-prohibitive for us to make the necessary renovations to maintain the additional high level of technical excellence," he said. "It's a business decision, essentially."
The lab, at 52 Millpond Parkway, which serves a high number of Medicare and Medicaid patients, will shutter its doors on Dec. 28.
The closure will come as a blow to many residents in the Monroe-Woodbury area without cars, including Hasidic women from the Village of Kiryas Joel who can't drive, recent immigrants and seniors. The only other lab in the Monroe-Woodbury area is a private one on Gilbert Street.
Former Harriman Justice Philip Caiazza, however, said that lab is too small for the needs of the area and is not as flexible in processing patients. Caiazza has become the unofficial spokesman for those protesting the closure of the Orange Regional facility, where he goes for blood work every two weeks.
Caiazza, who is nearly blind, relies on the Town of Monroe's Dial-a-Bus to take him from his doorstep to the lab a few miles from his house, he said. With the lab's slated closure, he would have to go to either Orange Regional's diagnostic center on Hatfield Lane in Goshen or Orange Regional's Medical Pavilion in the Town of Wallkill, he said.
Since there are no buses that go door-to-door to the Goshen facility, the 70-year-old Caiazza said his wife of 48 years would have to drive him to Wallkill.
"We're not young. I try to get around on my own as best I can. But now here's another hardship," Caiazza said. "I mean, we don't do this once every two or three months; we have to do this every two weeks."
The closure came mixed with irony for Caiazza, whose wife, Maria, once served on the board of directors and did fundraising for what was once Arden Hill Hospital, and is now the Goshen campus of Orange Regional.
"People down here have been hung out to dry," Caiazza said.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071113/NEWS/711130316
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