Massena hospital referendum passes, will remain open and get $20 million from state to pay off debts and privatize

By Andy Gardner

The Massena Memorial Hospital referendum has passed by a wide margin, 1,963 yes votes to 174 nays.

Meanwhile, Republicans have taken over two seats on the Town Council.

Republicans Bob Elsner and Sue Bellor are ahead in unofficial results that do not include absentee or affidavit ballots. They have respective vote totals of 1,332 and 1,073. They lead Democrats Melanie Cunningham, an incumbent, and Loren Fountaine, a newcomer. They have 908 and 889 votes, respectively.

The MMH referendum passing means the town will transfer its assets to St. Lawrence Health System, who will run MMH similar to how they run Canton-Potsdam and Gouverneur hospitals. It will enable MMH to receive a $20 million grant from the state and SLHS has said they will invest $8 million into the hospital. Much of that will be paying off MMH’s outstanding debts, but it appears that the hospital will remain open for the foreseeable future.

The Town Council for years has been either majority or entirely Democrat. Councilor Tom Miller, an incumbent Democrat, is not seeking re-election.

Bellor was fired by Town Supervisor Steve O’Shaughnessy from the MMH board earlier this year. She announced her bid for Town Council the next month. She was fired shortly after the board had voted to pursue an affiliation with Crouse Hospital. After her firing, and the termination of other MMH board members by the town supervisor, the reconstructed MMH board voted to affiliate with SLHS.

Elsner is a former MMH administrator who became an outspoken critic of the Town Council and O’Shaughnessy over their handling of transitioning MMH to a private non-profit entity.

At a town board meeting in April, O’Shaughnessy cut off Elsner from speaking during public comment has he began to launch into criticism.

The Democrats had received endorsements from the CSEA and New York State United Nurses union chapters representing laborers and nurses at MMH.

Looking forward, MMH CEO David Bender has said he believes the SLHS affiliation will expand healthcare in Massena.

“The other thing that’s been said many times ... rural medicine is changing so fast. What was just fine for a self-reliant, self-sufficient community hospital doesn’t work anymore. We do need to be part of bigger systems so we can have better support and better care for the community,” Bender said in a recent interview. “I keep telling everybody here ... bigger for the sake of bigger isn’t what this is about.”

SLHS is in the process of affiliating with Rochester General Hospital. When that goes through, Bender believes it will be an even bigger benefit to Massena.

“That’s the value of becoming part of a $2 billion system,” he said.

He said part of that is the medical and clerical staff being able to work with more colleagues.

“They need colleagues, they need to learn from each other too,” Bender said. “The quality gets up exponentially.”

The future of healthcare, Bender said, is today’s fields branching off into even more specific specialties. For example, an orthopedic surgeon would specialize by body part and age of the patient.

“General surgery isn’t general surgery anymore ... it’s not ‘this is a brand-new service we’re going to be bringing,’ but more depth,” Bender said. “That’s where the future is heading ... They have guys that do mostly joints, they have a hand surgeon.”

And he believes SLHS can make MMH, which has been losing $1 million or more in some months, profitable again.

“Canton-Potsdam and Gouverneur are turning decent profits at this point. They have for several years now. They’ll help us to take care of the critical capital needs until we can get on our own feet,” Bender said.

The CEO said they are aiming for the transition to be finalized early next year.

“It should be early in 2020. Once that happens, that really frees us up to move much more aggressively,” Bender said.