More Than 500 Attend Hearing On Monmouth Medical Center Losing Its Hospital License

EATONTOWN, NJ — More than 500 people lined up in the cold to attend Thursday's public hearing on RWJBarnabas' request to transfer the hospital license from Monmouth Medical Center to a new hospital it is building in Tinton Falls.

Congressman Frank Pallone, who vehemently opposes the hospital license transfer, said not everyone was allowed entry into the room where the meeting was held, at the Anne Vogel Family Care and Wellness Center on Wyckoff Road in Eatontown.

"The state forced this hearing into a room so small that RWJ Barnabas employees filled nearly every seat," said the congressman.

But a spokesman for RWJBarnabas disputed that portrayal. The room was at capacity and standing room only, but everyone who wanted to speak on the hospital license transfer had the opportunity to do so, he said.

Still, the hearing was only scheduled to take two hours and it instead lasted for nearly six, starting at 4 p.m. and ending at 10 o'clock Thursday evening.

RWJBarnabas is currently building what will be called the Vogel Medical Campus, on 36 acres off Corregidor Road in Tinton Falls, named after Atlantic Records CFO Sheldon Vogel, a major Monmouth County philanthropist. Completion is eyed for 2032. Monmouth Medical Center will relocate there. RWJ plans to relocate the Monmouth Medical children's hospital there, plus labor & delivery, the pediatric PICU, specialty surgery, intensive care and all cancer care. The first building that will open will be a five-story, 150,000-square-foot cancer center that is currently under construction off Corregidor Road.

Congressman Pallone, whose brother John Pallone is the mayor of Long Branch, said RWJBarnabas is taking a hospital away from the people of Long Branch.

"This so-called public hearing was a disgrace," said Pallone. "At every step, it has been engineered to shut the public out ... Our neighbors stood outside for hours in the cold because they refuse to let a multi-billion-dollar organization strip Long Branch of its hospital without a fight."

Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch is not closing, RWJBarnabas continues to stress.

Although RWJBarnabas does plan to reduce the size of Monmouth Medical Center's Long Branch campus by 65 percent, it will still have a full-service ER, 200+ hospital beds (many of those will be for psychiatric care), an outpatient surgery center, imaging services and specialty clinics.

RWJ says the Long Branch campus will "complement" its new Tinton Falls hospital.

"I will continue leading this fight until RWJ Barnabas abandons this reckless proposal," Pallone vowed Thursday.

What's next? The NJ Department of Health, under acting commissioner Jeffrey Brown, has to approve RWJBarnabas' certificate-of-need application to move the hospital license. Thursday's hearing was the only public hearing the state was required to hold on the license transfer.

The NJ State Health Planning Board Meeting will hold its next meeting Dec. 4, and the hospital license transfer may be discussed there. That meeting is also open to the public. The state DOH published all these documents from RWJBarnabas showing why there is a need to move the hospital license.

"We are incredibly grateful to the members of the State Health Planning Board who conducted a nearly six-hour-long public hearing in full accordance with state regulations," an RWJBarnabas Health spokesman said Friday. "We appreciate all who attended and provided input. We also appreciate the efforts of the Department of Health in continuing to allow public comment through the next few weeks. We look forward to continuing to engage our communities and demonstrate how our vision for transformative health care will create new, state-of-the-art and modernized health facilities to deliver the most advanced care and treatments closer to home for more of our patients."

New Hospital, Cancer Center Coming To Tinton Falls: Everything You Need To Know (Oct. 28)

RWJBarnabas Plans To Tear Down Some Buildings At Monmouth Medical Center (Oct. 29)

Plans To Relocate Monmouth Medical Center To Tinton Falls: Public Meeting Thursday (Nov. 11)