Sinai - MC Merger
which is located at Haggerty and
Cooley Lake roads in Commerce
Township.
"To now have a Sinai gives
them the opportunity for reach-
ing out and bringing in more pa-
tients who would have a very
positive view of Sinai quality
and Jewish tradition. So doctors
who practice in that area and
whose patients live out there
will now have the option to ad-
mit them to Huron Valley.
That'll mean more patients and
will strengthen Huron Valley's
financial situation, although it
will draw down patients from
the main Sinai campus. But if
they're consolidating Sinai and
Grace, it's also within DMC's in-
terest to consolidate operations
in Detroit," Mr. Horwitz added.
But the real question for a
"niche" hospital like Sinai is how
to maintain niche concerns
serving Jewish doctors and pa-
tients in a larger system, he said.
Mr. Schaengold said other
Jewish hospitals in the country
that have affiliated with net-
works have retained their iden-
tities, such as Mt. Zion in San
Francisco.
But many more have dis-
appeared altogether. Today,
10 independent Jewish hospi-
tals remain in the United States,
seven of them in New York
City.
The merger
is a winner
for
Sinai and DMC.
There are fewer freestanding
general hospitals anywhere, for
that matter. In the Detroit area,
Botsford, North Oakland Med-
ical Centers, Mt. Clemens Gen-
eral and about 10 others are still
independent. However, NOMC
is seeking partnership arrange-
ments, as are Pontiac Osteo-
pathic Hospital and Mt. Clemens
General.
"It's only a matter of time be-
fore they get subsumed or go out
of business altogether," Mr. Hor-
witz said.
The last big merger in the city
of Detroit was St. John's acquisi-
tion of Holy Crass in the past year.
Mt. Carmel Mercy's acquisition
by DMC preceded that. A few
months ago, Henry Ford Hospital
System acquired Horizon Health
System, including Bi-County
Health System in Warren and
Riverside in Trenton. Henry Ford
is the second largest hospital net-
work in the region.
DMC is the third-largest hos-
pital network in the metro
region, with revenues of $1.3
billion in 1995. With the
merger, it has the second-high-
est number of licensed beds —
3,000 — and owns 7 hospitals
and 45 outpatient facilities. One
of its holdings is the former
Woodland Clinic, now called
DMC Health Care Centers,
which was staffed primarily by
Sinai physicians before DMC
took it over in 1986. ❑
But Is It Kosher'?
While other hospitals compete for Jewish clients by offering frozell kosher
meals, Sinai will cogillue tote the only - one to have a kosher &cliff
JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR STAFF WRITER
N
ear the turn of the cen-
tury, back when Sinai
Hospital was only a
dream, a group of Or-
thodox Jews marched
down Hastings Street
and rallied in support of
the formation of a Jewish hospi-
tal that would serve kosher food.
The year was 1912. The march
netted $7,000 in nickels and
dimes that served as the start-
ing point for what later became
Sinai Hospital.
That the need for the hospital
would later evolve to include a
place for Jewish doctors to prac-
tice medicine did not diminish
the support for such a kitchen in
a health-care institution. When
Sinai finally opened its doors to
the public in 1953, it had the only
fully supervised kosher kitchen
in a Michigan hospital.
It still does.
Although Jewish doctors prac-
tice in virtually all of the area's
hospitals, no other hospital boasts
a kitchen under the supervision
of an Orthodox rabbinic council.
And that will not change under
the sale agreement between Sinai
and the Detroit Medical Center
(DMC), the secular organization
which will take control of the Jew-
ish hospital in the next month.
"We intend to continue offer-
ing the same kosher services
at Sinai as have been offered in
the past," said Shari Cohen, di-
rector of public relations at
DMC.
In addition, DMC is planning
to augment its kosher services in
the next few years by imple-
menting a kosher kitchen in the
Huron Valley Hospital, Ms. Co-
hen said. Not only will the Com-
merce Township hospital carry a
Star of David in its logo but its
kitchen will also be under the su-
pervision of the. Council of Ortho-
dox Rabbis (Vaad Harabonim),
the same rabbinical organization
that currently oversees kosher op-
erations at Sinai, she said.
Rabbi Joseph Krupnick, a
kosher inspector for the Vaad,
said the Council has not been ap-
prised of the future of kosher su-
pervision by Sinai's new owners.
However, they would be pleased
to offer such services to the sub-
urban branch of Sinai.
"If we got the call, we would do
it, most definitely," Rabbi Krup-
nick said.
And just as other area hospi-
tals have welcomed Jewish doc-
tors to their staffs, so, too, have
some provided rabbinic chap-
laincy as well as kosher meals.
While no area hospital other
than Sinai has a sanctioned
kosher kitchen, kosher meals are
available to kashrut observant
patients, the hospitals say.
A spokesperson said Henry
Ford Health Systems has "a
small but regular demand" for
kosher food. It keeps a constant
supply of frozen kosher meals in
sealed containers. Disposable sil-
verware is also provided.
But Rabbi Krupnick of the
Council of Orthodox Rabbis
doesn't agree that everything is
kosher at other hospitals. "They
may call it kosher, but there is
very little resemblance between
that and the reality," he said,
adding that in some hospitals
"kosher" means omitting pork
from the menu.
To ensure such frozen meals
are in fact kosher, the Vaad
sends an inspector regularly to
William Beaumont Hospital in
Royal Oak and Providence Hos-
pital in Southfield, the two oth-
er local hospitals to which the
Vaad provides some measure of
supervision.
Even then, other items ac-
companying a meal, such as jam
at breakfast, may not carry a
kosher supervision heksher, he
said. ❑
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