The Department of Health has released the findings of its investigation into the closing of Peninsula Hospital, the Far Rockaway facility which shut down in April after filing for bankruptcy. The report cites Peninsula’s $60 million debt as the impetus for the bankruptcy filing in September, 2011. Adding to the facility’s financial woes was a decrease in patient activity in the years leading up to the filing.
The report lists a series of “Next Steps and Recommendations,” a section that lays out potential work-arounds for residents of the Rockaways. Currently, the lone hospital located in that section of Queens is St. John’s Episcopal.
Reactions from residents of the area and local assembly people can be found in this report by the New York Daily News. The full four page report by the Department of Health can be accessed here.