A somewhat positive article about the Saint James Hospital closing. Saint James Hospital will be known as Saint James Health Center of Saint Michael’s Medical Center.
Newark hospital’s heart will beat on
Friday, March 14, 2008
Saint James Hospital is not just a Newark health care facility to Isabel Costa. It is her life, and she has given just about all of it to the Ironbound institution.
Whatever the hospital has needed, Costa, 66, has done it without hesitation, often getting up from her bed in the middle of the night to see about patient needs. Over the years, meetings about the hospital — including its uncertain future — have been held in her Newark kitchen on Elm Street, where she dished up Portuguese stews, soups and salads.
Thoughts like these sink in and make it hard for her to accept that Saint James will no longer be a full- service hospital starting tomorrow. It was her family, her fifth child if she could have another. But it’s closing after 108 years, leaving behind a history of service to residents who are angry it is being shut.
Costa is one of those hurt by the news, but considering the financial plight of Saint James, she is glad to know the new owners, Catholic Health East, will maintain a satellite emergency room and other services for residents to get health care.
“The emergency room is the heart of the hospital,” she said.
There are more hearings today on the issue, but some in the community see them as nothing more than a formality. The closure and how it has been carried out have been criticized by community activists like Nancy Zak of the Iron bound Community Corp. Zak has called the process faulty, accusing health care officials of making it a done deal without following a process.
Costa, who has long advocated health care for the poor and underprivileged, said she is saddened Saint James will not be what it was to the community.
“It was a beautiful, cozy place,” she said. “It’s like a mom-and-pop store. But nothing lasts forever. Not even you or I.”
Costa, who owns a health food store in the Ironbound, started out as a volunteer at the hospital at the suggestion of a friend who needed people from the community to be active with Saint James.
She didn’t mind, never thinking it would evolve into such lasting re lationship. It was only natural for this to happen. Costa was already known in the community and be came a link between the hospital and the immigrant population of Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking people. The hospital eventually hired her as a patient advocate/ community liaison and her phone hasn’t stopped ringing in 25 years.
Everyone knows her numbers, cell phone included. They know where she lives, too. Upstairs above her health store, a block from the hospital.
Ironbound residents have asked her for advice, if she knew a good doctor. At the hospital, she has translated for them, then impressed upon the administration the importance of recruiting Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking physicians.
Her advocacy didn’t stop there. It continued when she helped lead the fight to keep the hospital open in 1993. Some 250 people, including doctors, nurses and staff, came together to demonstrate in front of the Archdiocese of Newark.
Costa even had an open-line live television program at the hospital. For the 13 years that it ran, residents called in with questions for physicians she featured on the show.
“If you don’t learn anything else you should learn about your body,” she said.
The hospital is her second home. She’s there all the time it seems, in and out, walking the cor ridors, talking to patients. Along the way, she has rustled some feathers with her assertive style if a patient is not being treated right.
“I’m not a piece of cake,” she said. “The most valued thing in the hospital is the patient.”
With that said, she’s confident that its legacy of attentive care will remain intact. She said it wasn’t uncommon for staff and nurses to go out of their way to make patients feel comfortable.
If you wanted to sleep over with your son or daughter who had been admitted, you could. Visitation rules were relaxed if someone needed to see a loved one for a little while longer.
There was love there. There was warmth. It was an atmosphere, she said, that made you feel welcome walking through the doors.
“Going to St. James was like going home,” Costa said.
She would have been there this week if the operating room was open for surgery that she had Tuesday at St. Michael’s Medical Center. It wasn’t, but that’s okay.
“It’s (Saint James) the love of my life.”
Barry Carter may be reached at bcarter@starledger.com or (973) 392-1827.
© 2008 The Star Ledger
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