Queens Hospital Makes Last-Ditch Effort To Save Itself

In a last-ditch effort to stay in business, Parkway Hospital in Queens has filed an injunction to prevent state health officials from closing down the hospital next week.

A hearing is set to take place in Queens Supreme Court tomorrow.

The hospital, situated in the Forest Hills section of Queens, was one of five hospitals in New York City slated for closure in 2006 by a state-appointed health commission, the Berger Commission. The hospital is set to lose its operating license on September 30.

But hospital officials, who have filed a reconfiguration plan with the state, are fighting to keep the facility open and said health officials should consider their plan, according to a spokesman for the hospital, Fred Stewart.

In a September 19 letter to the hospital's president, Dr. Robert Aquino, state health officials stressed that their decision to shutter Parkway was final. "Parkway has been on notice that it would be required to close for nearly two years," the deputy commissioner of health systems management for the state's Department of Health, James Clyne Jr., wrote. Mr. Clyne, who heard about a possible lawsuit against the state, further urged Parkway executives from taking legal action, writing: "This is a short-sighted and risky gambit."