Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon said she responded to a report issued by the Jersey City Health Department that showed that the water in the building posed a significant health risk to the senior citizens living there.
"I just said, I'm going there," she said. "It was a like a chain reaction. Bill O'Dea stood up. So did Maurice Fitzgibbons, Bill Braker and Brian Stack. As chair of the Health Committee, I decided to go right then and there to see what the problems were. I got the support of the entire Health Committee and several other freeholders."
Progressive Health Care of Hudson County has operated Pollak and Meadowview hospitals since they took them over from the county in 1995. Problems at the two county nursing home facilities had been emerging for months, but not until July 12 did the severity of health-related issues become so evident.
Residents at Pollak Hospital had had a problem with their water since June 21. According to Jersey City health officer Joseph Castagna, a check on the water at the facility had showed the presence of E. coli bacteria, which can cause intestinal problems and even death.
Although Progressive Health Care, the firm operating Pollak and Meadowview Hospitals for the county, assured that they'd fix the problem, the Jersey City Health Department report showed no action for over three weeks. The bacteria, according to Davila-Colon, had started in a rooftop water tank and filtered through the pipes throughout Pollak Hospital, making it risky for residents to drink the water or even bathe in it.
"We were told the matter was being sent out to bid," Davila-Colon said during a telephone interview last week. "I wanted to know how long it takes to fix a pipe?"
She said Progressive is not a government body and does not have to meet the strict standards for bidding the county might face in a similar situation.
"But even we can act more quickly than that in an emergency," she said. "All we would need to do is get three quotes and then order the work done."
Calls to the Philadelphia-based legal firm representing Progressive were not returned last week.
Freeholder William O'Dea said the repair would be more extensive than a pipe repair, yet questioned the $100,000 estimate that Progressive has said they will need to pay a contractor.
Davila-Colon credited O'Dea with uncovering the problem at Pollak. O'Dea said a chaplain working at the hospital had told him that residents at the hospital had not showered in three weeks.
"One woman showered when she wasn't supposed to," Davila-Colon said. "The attorney for Progressive told us signs had been put up around the facility warning residents not to use the water. But when we went there to inspect last Thursday [July 12], we saw no signs."
Pollak Hospital started out as a tuberculosis hospital under Mayor Frank Hague in the 1930s, one of a series of public hospitals constructed using federal money - including Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital and the Jersey City Medical Center buildings. Half the floors in Pollak Hospital are empty, with gates across the inside of elevator doors to keep people from getting out at the wrong floor. O'Dea said the age of the building has contributed to the building's problems over the years
What they found at the hospital
For weeks, the freeholders had heard reports from people on the inside, tales of rapidly deteriorating conditions due to the troubled Progressive Hearth Care, the firm the county had engaged to handle the county's nursing home population.
After missing scheduled payments to the Hudson County Improvement Authority, prompting a lawsuit, Progressive declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy early in July - leading several prominent state and county officials to call for an investigation into the care of patients.
O'Dea led the county's effort to investigate Progressive, asking the county to set up an investigating committee, a move that failed to get support from fellow freeholders who did not want to jeopardize existing legal action. "I think we need to know what is going on there," he said during a statement issued at the Sept. 10 Freeholder Caucus meeting.
Davila-Colon feared the deteriorating finances had to lead to deteriorating care, and wanted to help make certain the residents of the two facilities were being cared for properly.
Progressive owed the county money and had made no payment to the county in more than 20 months, Davila-Colon said.
Progressive operated Pollak Hospital in Jersey City and Meadowview Hospital in Secaucus through a lease with the Hudson County Improvement Authority, which filed suit last month for $4.9 million it claims Progressive owes.
"We heard that Progressive was having problems from some of its employees who said they couldn't cash paychecks because of insufficient funds in the bank and couldn't go to a doctor because doctors were not accepting their health cards because the insurance bill had not been paid," Davila-Colon said.
A hospital of horrors?
Davila-Colon, O'Dea, Maurice Fitzgibbons, William Braker and Brian Stack made their way over to the hospital and walked right in.
Talking to the staff, Davila-Colon and the others learned that the residents were supplied a bottle of water during the day to serve as drinking and washing water.
"I was told that the staff brings the residents ice in the morning, but you know what happens to ice in this weather," she said. "One woman told us that to bathe, she heated the water up in a microwave. This is unacceptable and inhumane, and it is worse than being homeless. At least when you're homeless you can go to a shelter to bathe. These people have no place else to go."
Davila-Colon and O'Dea said the county is seeking to work out transportation plans that would allow residents to use nearby facilities to wash, such as the Jersey City Medical Center or the Armory, a military reserve facility. Freeholder Brian Stack said their visit showed other problems at the facility.
"As we got up to the sixth floor we found as many as 40 people there with no nurse or aide to assist them," Stack said.
O'Dea said the older building had not been maintained property.
"We found holes in a couple of the floors and a pit in the basement," he said. "There is no air-conditioning except window units in the front for the staff and the administration."
Meadowview doesn't have the same problems, according to Davila-Colon, who toured the facility in March with the head of the county's Department of Health and Senior Services.
"We didn't find terrible conditions there," Nidia said. "But the company did the minimum it had to do. It just kept the place going, providing the minimum necessary care."
Freeholders threatened with arrest
The freeholders went back to Pollak Hospital the next day, on Friday, July 13, to see if Progressive had taken any action to improve conditions for residents. They found that management had called the police.
"We went to follow up on the water situation," O'Dea said.
"Progressive threatened us with arrest," Davila-Colon said. "I called Mayor [Glenn] Cunningham. He called the police. We weren't there to be disruptive and everybody knew it. After all, the county still owns those buildings and we had a right to be there."
Progressive went to court to stop the freeholders from making any more appearances at the hospital.
"Progressive sought an injunction to stop us," O'Dea said. "But once the Bankruptcy Court Judge [Rosemary Gamardella] heard why we were there, she informed Progressive that it would no longer be in charge."
The judge appointed a trustee, Somerville attorney Gary Marks, to take control over the hospital's operations and finances.
Stack said last week that Marks has already taken action to get an environmentalist to check the water and tanks. O'Dea said he has met with Marks and expects that a new temporary management company will be named to run operations at both hospitals.
"He has some concerns being able to hold off creditors," O'Dea said. "And he has proposed a cooling off period of 60 to 90 days to get the facilities back on track. Ultimately, we will have new operators for the facilities, or in a worse case scenario, the county could step back in during the interim."
Davila-Colon said Marks has agreed to update her as the chair of the Health Committee every other day as to what is taking place.
"We wanted a receivership a long time ago," Nidia said. "For months, we were told that it could take six months or a year. Because of all this, it happened in 72 hours."
Going back
Financial problems are not new at the two hospitals. In 1995, when the county privatized management of the facilities by allowing Progressive to take over, employees had both facilities complained about problems with paychecks and other aspects of operations. But state investigations done then showed the 1995 problems had more to do with the changeover of administration and new federal guidelines instituted than Progressive's management.
Davila-Colon, who had been a freeholder then, said the reasoning behind the change was valid.
"We had to privatize. We couldn't afford to operate those facilities," she said. "At the same token, even if we privatized, we have a moral obligation to make sure the residents and employees are treated well."
What about other aging buildings?
O'Dea said the freeholders plan to return to the facility with Marks on July 24 to determine what needs to be done immediately and to look over other items that might take longer to get done.
But O'Dea said the county needs a plan for its aging buildings. Pollak Hospital, along with the currently-closed Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital next to it, is valuable resource that seems to be going to waste. He said when Jersey City Medical Center moves its operations to its new facilities next year, the county could have three "white elephants" on its hands.
"Some of the problems in Pollak and those other buildings are too big for Progressive or maybe even the county by itself to handle," he said. "Perhaps we need to pursue grants and loans or historical preservation funds to upgrade them. These buildings need major rehabilitation in order to function."
O'Dea said the county should consider upgrading these buildings to create a campus for seniors that includes aging-in-place provisions for medical and other senior needs. He said campuses offering assisted living and other long term programs are popping up in suburban New Jersey, but are needed just as much in Hudson County's urban landscape.
"These buildings could give us that kind of facility," he said. "The whole industry has changed and facilities are providing adult day care, assisted living and aid to the disabled, we can do the same here. But this issue is so big, we need all the available resources we can get from the state, and perhaps need a state-county joint task force to analysis the situation, brining in health care professionals to look at the costs."
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