Catholic health care to remain in Newark under comprehensive plan

Published: 2008-01-23

NEWARK, N.J. (CNS) -- In a move that Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said would ensure that "the Catholic mission of providing necessary care for the poor will continue" in Newark, the three-hospital Cathedral Healthcare System will affiliate with Catholic Health East. The archdiocese is the religious sponsor of the three Catholic hospitals, but Cathedral Healthcare System operates as a separate corporation. Under the plan, unveiled Jan. 10, acute-care services at St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark will be expanded, while those at Columbus Hospital and St. James Hospital will be phased out. "Financial projections show that, without implementation of the plan, all three of our hospitals will fail by mid-March," said Msgr. Ronald J. Rozniak, chairman and CEO of Cathedral Healthcare System. "Cathedral simply cannot overcome the tremendous financial hurdles it now faces. Our operating model, which values the availability of 'neighborhood-level' acute care, served the community well for most of the past 140 years, but a variety of changes in recent decades now make the model fundamentally unsupportable," he added.

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