Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
NJ-Hospital-Finance-09-Annual-Report
Page 28 describes the 152 million bond issued to Solaris for the purpose of expanding JFk Hospital and moving medical services, described as "no longer useful" out of Plainfield.
NJ Hospital Finance 09 Annual Report
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center, Plainfield: Proposed Redevelopment Plans Unveiled for the Former Hospital Complex
APRIL 11, 2012
Tracy & Swartwout Buildings at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center
This guest blog was written by PNJ intern Lauren Giannullo. Lauren is a graduate student at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Public Policy. She is studying for a master’s in City and Regional Planning with a certificate in Historic Preservation.
After 4 1/2 years of languishing on and off the real estate market, Plainfield’s shuttered Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center (a2011 PNJ 10 Most Endangered Historic Place) may to be targeted for redevelopment. Citing what they consider to be unsustainable continued expenses for property maintenance at Muhlenberg, and a dearth of prospective buyers for the site during its time on the market, owner JFK Health Systems has turned to a different concept : marketing the property as a prime location for new luxury rental housing and retail development, thanks in large part to the transportation options offered by the site’s proximity to the Plainfield train station.
The new redevelopment concept for the site, announced in March, calls for luxury rentals and retail space spread over 11 acres, with continued operation of the satellite emergency room, lab services, and dialysis clinic currently housed on the rest of the property. Initial cost estimates for demolition of the historic Muhlenberg campus have come in at more that $5 million – quite a financial hurdle for any potential buyer. The good news is that there is no compelling reason for the historic hospital buildings to come down. Actively used through 2007, these buildings are in good condition and offer an ideal opportunity for rehabilitation to accommodate any new use, including the apartments or retail space outlined in the new redevelopment plan.
Muhlenberg Hospital, as it was originally known, opened at this location in Plainfield in 1903. The core of the complex was built by the noted New York architects Tracy & Swartwout that same year; these buildings are some of the earliest examples of the firm’s work. Over the years the hospital complex expanded, but the original Tracy & Swartwout buildings have remained largely intact. These buildings serve as a living history of the people who worked to improve health care in New Jersey, and provide a tangible link to the community’s past. Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center closed its doors in 2007 amid much controversy- the historic Muhlenberg buildings have remained vacant since that time.
Preservation New Jersey strongly urges recognition of the significance of Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center‘s historic buildings to both the city of Plainfield and the state of New Jersey by JFK Health Systems and any prospective site developers. In light of the dwindling number of extant historic medical complexes in the state, the importance of this site in terms of the history of health care and the medical field, and the noteworthy architects involved in the buildings’ creation, it is of critical importance that these structures be maintained and reused productively within any new redevelopment scheme. Demolition of these buildings would be a detriment to the community and its history, not to mention a waste of money and energy on demolition and landfilling. The historic significance of the Tracy & Swartwout buildings on the property can only serve to enhance future plans for this property: any redevelopment here will need “curb appeal” just as much as any other development. In the extant historic Muhlenberg Campus, this property has something that sets it apart- an opportunity to create a one-of-a-kind mixed use development unlike others on offer throughout the state.
The models of successful historic hospital rehabilitation abound; there’s the former City Hospital in St. Louis, MO; the former Jersey City Medical Center, currently undergoingrehabilitation in Jersey City; and the former Eitel Hospital in Minneapolis, MN, just to name a few. These are not your everyday complexes, and Muhlenberg doesn’t have to be, either. Let’ hope JFK Health System wants Plainfield to have a successful, “stand out” redevelopment at Muhlenberg as much as we do!http://preservationnj.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/muhlenberg-regional-medical-center-plainfield-proposed-redevelopment-plans-unveiled-for-the-former-hospital-complex/
Saturday, July 28, 2012
For Immediate Release
May 27, 2005
May 27, 2005
Grassley Asks Non-profit Hospitals to Account for
Activities Related to Their Tax-exempt Status
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Grassley today asked some of the
nation’s largest non-profit hospitals to account for their charitable
activities, given the tax-exempt status they receive. The designation results
in tax benefits totaling tens of billions of dollars every year.
Grassley said the inquiry is a continuation of his effort
to review the non-profit sector in advance of legislation he will introduce to
prevent abuse of the federal tax laws that created non-profit organizations and
encourage charitable donations. Grassley is chairman of the Senate Committee on
Finance, which is responsible for tax legislation and oversight.
"It’s my duty to make sure charitable donations
actually help those in need," Grassley said. "It’s also my job to
make sure charities are earning their generous tax breaks. Tax-exempt status is
a privilege. Unfortunately some charities abuse that privilege. By gathering
information from non-profit hospitals, I hope to learn whether the benefits
they provide to the needy justify the tax breaks they receive."
In a letter today to 10 hospitals and hospital systems,
Grassley asks for information about issues including charitable activities,
patient billing, and ventures with for-profit companies and hospitals. Grassley
sent his letter was sent to the following hospitals:
--The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio;
--New York Presbyterian Hospital System, New York, N.Y.;
--Advocate Health Care Network and Advocate Health and
Hospitals Corporation, Oak Brook, Ill.;
--Resurrection Medical Center and Resurrection Health
Care, Chicago, Ill.;
--Phoebe Putney Health Systems, Inc., Phoebe Putney
Memorial Hospital, Inc., Albany, Ga.;
--William Beaumont Hospital and Beaumont Properties,
Royal Oak, Mich.;
--North Mississippi Health Services, Inc., North
Mississippi Medical Center, Tupelo, Miss.;
--Sutter Health, Sacramento, Calif.;
--Fairview Health Systems, Minneapolis, Minn.; and
--Banner Health, Phoenix, Ariz.
Grassley began his oversight of the non-profit sector
several years ago when problems emerged with the United Way and the American
Red Cross. Grassley conducted his first hearing to examine the ways some
tax-exempt organizations game the tax system in June 2004. In April 2005, he
held a second hearing. That hearing examined schemes to take inflated
deductions for non-cash donations, such as those involving taxidermy, and the
broad scope of charitable sector enforcement problems, according to the
Internal Revenue Service commissioner. The Minnesota attorney general testified
about highly questionable activities by non-profit health care operations in
that state.
Earlier this month, Grassley introduced legislation to
crack down on abuses in certain life insurance contracts involving tax-exempt
organizations. He is working on a series of legislative reforms to curb various
other abuses and improve charities’ accountability to taxpayers and potential
donors. He continues to consult with the non-profit sector to ensure that his
reforms are effective yet not unduly onerous for charities, especially small
charities.
Here is the text of today’s letter.
May 25, 2005
The Congress is considering the issues of tax-exempt
organizations and particularly the duties and requirements of public charities
in relation to the billions of dollars in tax benefits that tax-exempt
organizations receive at the federal, state and local level. To assist the
Congress in this review and determination of actual practices in the field for
tax exempt hospitals, I request the following information:
Charity Care and Community Benefit
1. How does your organization define charity care? What
types of activities or programs does your organization include in its definition
or determination of charity care? Which of these activities or programs would
your organization not incur, at all or to the same extent, if you were
organized and operated as a for-profit hospital? Does your organization
maintain a charity policy? If so, please describe the policy or provide a copy
of such policy. Does this policy require that certain types and amounts of
charity care be provided?
2. What are the 10 largest categories of charity care
expenditures incurred by your hospital for the past five years? How does this
differ from 10 years ago? 25 years ago?
3. What percentage of your patients for your most recent
fiscal year were: (a) uninsured, (b) covered by Medicare, (c) covered by
Medicaid or other state or other governmental program providing medical care
benefits for low income individuals, or (d) otherwise covered by private
insurance?
4. Does your hospital ever agree to waive its fees
immediately upon admission of a patient? If so, under what circumstances?
5. What effect, if any, has the increase in patient
co-payments and deductibles had on patient bad debt writeoffs of your hospital
over the past five years?
6. Has your hospital or other members of your hospital
system group entered into joint ventures with other nonprofit, tax-exempt
hospitals to provide charity care or health care services? If so, please
describe the nature of such joint ventures.
7. Has your hospital or other members of your hospital
system group entered into joint ventures with physicians or other for-profit companies
or investors to conduct unrelated trade or business activities? If so, please
describe the nature of such joint ventures.
8. Has your hospital or other members of your hospital
system group entered into joint ventures with physicians or other for-profit
companies or investors to conduct health care activities you consider to be
substantially related to your core charitable mission? If so, please describe
the nature of such joint ventures.
9. Do any of your hospital or hospital system joint
ventures have charity care policies that require certain types or amounts of
charity care to be provided? If so, please describe such policies, and how they
are similar to or different from your hospital’s charity care policy. Also
explain the role your hospital has in assuring that the charity care policy of
the joint venture is enforced. If your organization does not track charity care
expense by such categories, please explain why not, and provide a narrative
response that explains whether there are certain categories of care for which
charity care is more important or is not relevant.
10. Please respond to the following assertion: Many
nonprofit, tax-exempt hospitals engage in joint ventures that shift the most
profitable and valuable procedures, practices, and income streams to the joint
ventures so that the greater profits and value may be shared with physicians
and other for-profit persons.
11. How do you assure that your joint ventures with
others do not deplete your hospital’s resources that otherwise would be
available for charity care, such as by tying up cash and other liquid assets in
the investments in the joint venture?
12. Please provide a charity care breakdown for each
entity that is a member of your hospital system group. In your opinion, should
charity care be measured on an aggregate group basis or on an
organization-by-organization basis?
13. In your judgment, should the Federal tax law require
each joint venture in which a tax-exempt hospital participates to have a
charity care requirement? If so, should the amount of the requirement differ
depending upon the extent of ownership by exempt hospitals in the joint
venture?
14. How does your hospital account for charity care
provided by a joint venture in which the hospital participates? For example, if
your hospital is a 50% owner of a joint venture, and the joint venture provides
$100 of charity care, do you count $0, $50, $100, or some other amount, as
charity care provided directly by your hospital?
15. What types of research and teaching are performed by
your hospital as a charitable or educational activity?
16. Please describe any fund-raising activities conducted
by your hospital in an attempt to supplement fees for services and other
revenues. Specifically, provide for the last three years the amount of
charitable donations received by your hospital. Does your organization ever
conduct fund-raising activities which commit the donations raised by the
activity to be used to provide medical care to low-income or uninsured
individuals or families?
17. In general, does partnering with for-profits in a
joint venture arrangement have implications on the provision of charity care
and the satisfaction of the community benefit standard by the joint venture or
by the overall hospital system that participates in the joint venture?
18. Do your compensation arrangements with physicians and
other professionals in any way encourage or discourage the provision of charity
care by your hospital or hospital system? If so, how?
19. Please provide a breakdown of your charity care
expenditures, across emergency room services, urgent care services, intensive
care services, rehabilitation, maternity care, mental health care, cosmetic
surgery, chemical dependency and outreach, and any other categories you
consider to be appropriate.
20. What kinds of community outreach and education
activities does your hospital conduct, and how much is expended on such
activities (in absolute dollars and as a percent of your budget)?
21. Please explain how the amount of charity care you
provide differs in magnitude and kind from that provided by your for-profit
competitors?
22. How much does your hospital spend on free or
below-cost infant and child care programs, such as childhood immunization
programs?
23. Does your organization conduct clinical trial
programs, and if so, how does your organization treat such programs for
purposes of determining charity care?
24. How do you allocate expenses (direct labor and
materials, indirect labor and materials, management, general and
administrative, fund-raising, investment, and other) for purposes of
determining the amounts you consider to have been expended on your charity care
programs? Does this allocation include costs incurred pursuant to a
cost-sharing arrangement with other members of your hospital system group? Is
this allocation mechanism dictated by internal policy, Federal or State
regulatory requirements, financial accounting principles, or other standards?
Is your allocation of expenses to charity care consistent with expense
allocation procedures you use to allocate expenses for other purposes,
regulatory or otherwise? Please explain any similarities and differences.
25. Please provide a statistical breakdown of the
hospital’s average cost per patient and the average length of stay of your patients.
Feel free to provide as much detail as you consider to be appropriate to
demonstrate the range of costs and stays across different types of treatment.
Payments/Charges/Debt Collection/Tax-Exempt Status and
Other Issues
Please explain what is the average mark-up of charges
over costs? What is the average private pay contractual allowance (charges to
payments) weighted by payer?
2. Please explain the reason for charging
"chargemaster" rates to uninsured individuals particularly in light
of the Secretary of Health and Human Services’ letter of February 19, 2004 to
the President of the American Hospital Association and also in light of your
not-for-profit and tax-exempt status.
3. Please explain how fairness or reasonableness of
charges to the uninsured can be assured even in instances where you offer
discounts where those discounts are discounts from the already high
chargemaster rate? What is your discount policy?
What is the collection rate for self-pay?
4. If government programs pay for hospital services for
its enrollees without regard to the chargemaster rate and commercial insurance
carriers throughout the country likewise pay not based on the chargemaster
rate, please explain why the uninsured continue to be charged the chargemaster
rate?
5. Please explain what is the economic benefit to your
hospital of charging uninsureds the high chargemaster rate when uninsured
people generally have less of an ability to pay hospital charges and do in fact
generally pay only a fraction of what has been charged? Does this benefit
justify your action particularly in light of your not-for-profit tax-exempt
status?
6. The Committee has heard statements from individuals
that have gone to many not-for-profit, tax-exempt hospitals in the very recent
past and have seen no evidence of the fact that they make their tax-exempt and
charitable missions known to patients via signs in patient access areas,
brochures, booklets and the like. Please comment on what your hospital does to
provide such visible information on the subject.
7. Please identify what steps your hospital has taken to
insure that lower level staff, who are actually the front-line staff, are aware
of your not-for-profit status and charitable mission and have been instructed
to implement the same in their treatment of uninsured patients. Please produce
any documents conveying such information to your staff.
8. If your hospital believes that Medicare rules created
roadblocks to providing discounts to the uninsured, as is evidenced by the
President of the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) December 2003 letter to
the Department of Health and Human Services, why did your hospital, or your
hospital through the AHA not raise the same with the Department at an earlier
date? In considering this question it is noteworthy that in December of 2002,
Trevor Fetter, the CEO of Tenet Healthcare, stated in an investor conference
call "I would like to turn to an issue that has bothered me for years. I
mentioned earlier that Medicare requires hospitals to set charges the same for
everyone. This means that the uninsured or underinsured patient receives a bill
of gross charges. In other words, the entire hospital industry renders its
highest bills to the customers who are least able or likely to pay."
In addition, please state whether your organization ever
grossed up their charges on the Medicare cost report because they had a lower
OPD fee schedule? Please state your views on whether it is allowable or
acceptable for hospitals to lower their charges for the insured and not the uninsured?
9. It has been suggested that one of the reasons that a
hospital may have maintained these high chargemaster rates is that it allows
the hospital to obtain more in the way of Medicare outlier payments thus
further costing the government additional money for the care of the uninsured.
Please explain why your hospital, as a tax-exempt not-for-profit hospital,
feels that this is appropriate or inappropriate. What was the growth rate in
your Medicare outlier payments from 1998 to 2002?
10. Secretary Thompson, in his letter mentioned above,
noted that "Medicare and Medicaid have a long history of doing their part
to help the uninsured that includes paying hospitals $22 billion each year
through the disproportionate share hospitals’ provision to help hospitals bear
the cost of caring for the poor and uninsured." In light of the fact that
you are a tax-exempt not-for-profit hospital, please comment on whether or not
you believe it is appropriate for your hospital to receive such aid from the
government. Please list your payments under disproportionate share for the past
three years as compared to uncompenstated care, separating out bad debt.
11. Do you agree that the chargemaster method of charging
uninsureds should be discontinued? In answering, I would ask that you consider
the statement of Mr. Jack Bovender, the Chairman and CEO of Hospitals
Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit hospitals in the country.
Mr. Bovender has stated, "the chargemaster system on which hospitals rely
to set pricing and billing codes have a 40 year history of changes that have
distorted the relationship between price and cost. It grew out of a time when
decreasing Medicare reimbursement prompted cost shifting to the private sector
and this was exacerbated in the 90's by aggressive managed care discounting. I
am not here to try to justify this and it really needs to be fixed."
12. At the hearing of the Oversight Investigation
Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on hospital billing
dated June 24, 2004, Mr. Bovender stated that he "was told by both inside
and outside legal counsel . . . [in late 2002] that we had to get clearance
[for discounting to the uninsured] through CMS." Please identify whether
your hospital has received such legal advice and if so, please provide any
written documentation of that advice.
13. Please provide all documents related to your
hospital’s consideration of medical charges for billing practices, charity or
indigent care, discounts or write-offs to uninsured patients.
14. Please provide all documents relating to your charity
care policy, community benefit reports, community benefit assessment, community
benefit strategy and/or charity care audits for the time period of January 1,
1998 through the present. In providing the same, please identify specifically
where those documents consider your hospital’s treatment of the uninsured.
15. Please provide any community needs assessment done by
you or on your behalf during the time period of January 1, 1998 through the
present. In providing the same, please identify specifically where your
hospital considered its treatment of the uninsured in its community needs
assessment.
16. Please identify how many lawsuits you have filed
against uninsured patients for the current year and the preceding five calendar
years and please identify whether or not you are compelled by law to file such
lawsuits in order to collect from these individuals. Please identify the amount
of debt that was at issue in each suit. Please identify any times you have sold
debt owed to the hospital from uninsured patients to other companies for
collection. Please state the amount the debt(s) was sold for, and the terms
under which such private collection accounts were sold. In particular, please
estimate the volume and value of accounts sold to private companies in the past
five years, and whether those sales were made after your hospital rigorously
pursued the patient on its own, and whether or not the hospital also claimed
those same accounts for purposes of collecting the70% bad debt payments made
available to hospitals that despite best efforts, fail to recover aged patient
accounts. Please explain how the sale of private accounts for recovery, and an
concomitant claim to Medicare for payments on the same debts, is not
"double dipping.".
Please provide copies of your contracts, if any, with
collection agencies. Please identify whether this collection agency is a
for-profit or nonprofit subsidiary of your organization. Please discuss any
financial relationship with a bank or credit card company that patients use to
help finance their debt. Please explain if you differentiate between Medicare
and Non Medicare patients in regard to debt. If you sell debt, what is your
policy on when that debt is sold, particularly in terms of the age of the debt.
17. Please identify any money or investments that your
hospital or related organization (including supporting organization or private
foundation) has in off-shore bank. Identify the amount in these accounts.
Please explain why your organization has taken this action.
18 Please provide an organization chart including Type I
and Type II supporting organizations. The chart should identify ownership
interest and the type of organization (nonprofit, for profit, partnership,
etc.).
19. Some hospitals have taken the position that the
provision of healthcare, no matter the cost to the patient, is inherently
charitable. Do you agree that the provision of health care to uninsureds is
charitable even if there is a high charge associated with it? If so, please
explain.
20. Some hospitals have stated that all patients, insured
and uninsured alike, are charged the same amount for services. It seems that
this is a response based on semantics as it is my understanding that all
insureds and government payors ultimately are expected to pay less than the
chargemaster rate while uninsured patients are expected to pay the full amount.
Please respond and in your response identify the net effective discount to all
patient groups based on contractual or other allowances with those groups and
identify the discount offered to uninsured patients as well. Please explain
what your policies are for providing elective procedures, ex. breast biopsies,
mammograms, colonoscopies, physicals, etc. to the uninsured.
21. Please provide for the last three years a detailed
breakdown of travel of your five top salaried employees: for trips over $1000
please provide receipts for hotel; meals; airfare and all other reimbursed
items as well as the purpose of the trip. Please provide all salaries and other
benefits provided to these five individuals for the last three years from any
organization identified in question B18. Finally, please detail any payments or
reimbursements made to employees for country clubs.
Thank you for your time and assistance on this matter. I
would ask for a complete response by July 11, 2005.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
cc: Senator Baucus
Chairman Thomas
-30-
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
The 1912 Closson-Edgerton Maternity
Pavilion
The 1912 Closson-Edgerton Maternity Pavilion was a
bequest by Mrs. Minnie Closson-Edgerton in memory of her brother, James T.
Closson, and her son, James Closson Edgerton.
Mrs. Edgerton left $50,000 in her will with instructions to build a
maternity pavilion, and if that was already in progress then the instructions
were to build a children's ward. A total
of $25,000 was to be used for the maternity pavilion construction, and the
income from investment of the remaining $25,000 was for maintenance.
This maternity pavilion was built in a similar
architectural style as the 1903 Muhlenberg buildings, and there is a lengthy
memorial inscription on the building.
The 1912 Closson-Edgerton Maternity Pavilion was designed by
Crow(e), Lewis & Wickenhofer, a New York
architectural firm. The 65th edition of
the Muhlenberg School of Nursing yearbook noted that the erection of this
Maternity Pavilion "made it possible for the students to receive their
obsterical nursing at Muhlenberg."
Since Mrs. Edgerton's will provided for the
maintenance of the Maternity Pavilion, this building has survived for almost
100 years. With the passage of the 2009
Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, this endowed maintenance
fund could be in jeopardy, and then the building would be in jeopardy.
by N. A. Piwowar, 2011
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Plainfield Mayor Leighton Calkins - Golf Innovator
Leighton Calkins
1868-1955
Leighton Calkins was the Mayor of Plainfield from 1915-1920, and was instrumental in the completion of the City Hall building. A plaque in City Hall describes the story of the building of Plainfield's City Hall. Leighton Calkins' only son, Wolcott, is listed on Plainfield City Hall's World War I memorial as a casualty.
According to Plainfield Country Club's The First Hundred Years, "The origin of the modern handicap system comes from the one devised for Plainfield Country Club by Leighton Calkins in 1904." This book also states that "Calkins coined the word "par" to describe the standard best score, borrowing from the financial phrase "the par value of stocks."
Leighton Calkins died in 1955, and his will was probated in Union County, New Jersey.
In the Third Paragraph of Will, there is beguest: "to Muhlenberg Hospital, a corporation under the laws of the State of New Jersey and located in Plainfield, New Jersey, the sum of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000) on condition that in consideration of this gift a room in the private pavilion be named as a memorial to my dear wife, Nella Bond Calkins, - marked by an appropriate tablet."
Questions: What is by law the remedy for the loss of this
endowed room to the Plainfield community?
http://www.usga.org/news/2011/October/History-Of-Handicapping--Part-III/
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Link to Smithsonian sculpture of Muhlenberg Architect Evarts Tracy
"As Major of Engineers Pioneer Camouflage Officer United States Army"
SI Collections Search Center: Evarts Tracy [sculpture] / (photographed by Louis H. Dreyer)
Saturday, March 17, 2012
The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion
Plainfield's Forgotten Gem
by Nancy A. Piwowar
Hidden behind a stockade fence, set far off Randolph Road, on the Muhlenberg property is a red brick building with a large arched window and a scrolled keystone. The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion dates to 1903, and is Plainfield's forgotten gem.
A notice in the local newspaper, Plainfield Courier-News, in 1900, related the possibility of a new hospital building, and the response by the local residents was immediate. Public subscriptions were received. Then the decision was made by the Muhlenberg Board of Governors, to build a "new" Muhlenberg Hospital at a new site, and many distinguished men offered land. James E. Martine offered a lot on Thorton Avenue. Former Mayor of North Plainfield, John F. Wilson, offered a lot in North Plainfield, but this could not be accepted because it was in a different county. Finally the Muhlenberg Board of Governors took an option on farm land at the edge of the City on Park Avenue and Randolph Road.
Within four months of the discussions of a "new" Muhlenberg in the local newspaper, it was reported that J. Howard Wright in April, 1901, gave the largest and most generous donation of $10,000 for an operating pavilion for the "new" Muhlenberg in memory of his two grandsons. Howard Wright Corlies died at the age of 23 from pneumonia in 1899. Parker Wright Mason died at the age of 19 from typhoid fever in 1900. J. Howard Wright was a wealthy Standard Oil businessman from New York City, and his two daughters and families resided in Plainfield, for many years.
The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion also contained a sterilizing room, an etherizing room, a room for the X-ray instrument and a recovery room, which were all considered essential for a modern hospital.
The 1903 Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion retains many of its original exterior elements including inscription, large arched, scrolled keystone, and northern window. The only evident change is the removal of the roof line skylight. The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion was designed by Tracy and Swartwout, a New York architectural firm, and Evarts Tracy, one of the architects, grew up in Plainfield on West Eighth Street in the Van Wyck Brooks Historic District, and he later resided with his wife on Hillside Avenue, in the Hillside Avenue Historic District within sight of the "new" Muhlenberg and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion.
The 1903 Tracy and Swartwout Muhlenberg complex of buildings were not built squarely to face either Park Avenue or Randolph Road, but were "built squarely with the points of the compass." The purpose of this was "to have the operating room face North, so that it would have the full benefit of the North light." [Plainfield Courier-News, July 19, 1902, page one article.]
Plainfield's forgotten gem has survived over one hundred and seven years, and is passed by daily on the way to the satellite emergency department without nearly a second glance because it is behind a stockade fence. The wall inscription is obscured by the fence, and according to newspaper articles, behind the cornerstone of operating pavilion is a copper box that contains various items including: local and New York newspapers, Muhlenberg Hospital annual reports, photographs of J. Howard Wright's grandsons, photographs of doctors, nurses, employees, and of the old hospital buildings, names of the contractors, to name a few items.
The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion serves as a grand monument to Mr. Wright's Plainfield family, and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion is one of the only known surviving separate, stand alone operating room buildings extant in New Jersey and most likely in the United States. It is important to preserve The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion because it is a monument to the Wright family, Muhlenberg heritage and medical culture, and Muhlenberg's doctors, nurses and staff.
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