Save Christ Hospital forms Community Oversight Board

Jersey City, NJ, January 24, 2012 - Christ Hospital’s plan to abandon its charitable mission and sell the hospital to a for-profit corporation calls for substantial community involvement and oversight. Save Christ Hospital has drawn together 14 community organizations and formed a community board to represent ordinary residents of Hudson County in the plans to sell this important community asset.

139 years ago, the Episcopal Church founded Christ Hospital to serve the critical medical needs of the north Hudson community. The City of Jersey City, Hudson County, and the State of New Jersey have invested in that mission, providing direct financial support and forgiving taxes on the hospital’s real estate and business operations. As a not-for-profit institution, Christ Hospital’s duty has been to put its patients and its community first, and reinvest any surplus into its mission.

Save Christ Hospital calls for:

1. An open, transparent review process with substantial and meaningful public participation;
2. A community needs assessment to determine essential services that must be provided;
3. A formal bid process that state government, local government, and the public can see prior to any sale; and
4. That any sale fully meet the CHAPA standard of no negative impact on the public interest, and that the state impose strong conditions to ensure:
- continued access to all existing healthcare services for at least 10 years,
- quality health care and health care outcomes,
- access to services for the uninsured,
- protection of existing staffing levels and workplace rights for employees, and
- the use and governance of this important non-profit community asset based on community need.

Save Christ Hospital will work with Governor Christie, the Attorney General, and the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services to safeguard the public interest as required by the Community Health Care Assets Protection Act (CHAPA), and with the Hospital and potential buyers to help preserve the hospital’s and its historic mission of quality healthcare accessible to the whole community.

See the Hudson Reporter article, "Jersey City neighborhood associations form 'community oversight board' to monitor Christ Hospital sale."