1956
Shapero School
of Nursing
opened
Og at Sinai Hospital
44:
1959
1986
Shiffman Clinic
Wing, successor
to North End
Clinic, opened
at Sinai
Sinai
Hechtman
Health
Center opens
in Bingham
Farms
Sinai
doctors
develop
device for
permanent
dentures in
1967
1 ;i:racts
with the DMC, either at Sinai-
Grace or other DMC facilities. It is
Grace
unclear, however, how many of these
contracts will be renewed once they
expire, and the DMC — which
reported losses of $100 million in
1998 — is anticipating staff layoffs
throughout the system.
The DMC bought Sinai with the
intent of increasing DMC's presence
and minimizing its competition
— in the northwest region, said
Coats at a meeting with The Jewish
News staff Feb. 25.
"If we didn't buy it, someone else
was going to. Then we'd have had a
competitor in a market significant to
the DMC," he said.
An executive from a Florida con-
suiting firm, the Hunter Group,
Coats was brought in on a temporary
basis a few months ago to address the
DMC's escalating fiscal problems.
Shortly after purchasing the 600-
bed Sinai, the DMC announced it
would merge the hospital with the
400-bed Grace, since neither was
operating at full capacity. The origi-
nal plan called for closing Grace and
substantially renovating Sinai, but
DMC scaled back the plan in the
face of system-wide losses.
It projected that it would cost
more than $47 million to move
Grace into Sinai, compared with $22
million to move Sinai into Grace.
The DMC will decide within the
1988
Satellite facili-
ties opened in
Southfield,
Farmington
Hills and
Livonia
1991
1997
1999
Sinai Health Care
Foundation is
formed to ensure
the Jewish traditions
of Sinai Hospital
Sinai Hospital
sold to Detroit
Medical Center
DMC votes
to shut
Sinai Hospital
Sinai
resident
Dr. Stuart
Kieran
studies
X-rays,
1982
Sinai
pioneers a
cardiac
rehabilitation
unit in 1977
next year what to do with the vacated
Sinai building, said Coats. Sinai's
satellite facilities in Oakland County
will not be affected by the closing of
the Outer Drive facility.
Despite its long-time Jewish affili-
anon, and the fact that it is the only
Michigan hospital to run a kosher
kitchen, Sinai serves a relatively small
number of Jewish patients. The
DMC estimates that five percent of
Sinai patients are Jewish, and that
10-15 kosher meals are served each
day. A 1998 Simmons/Jewish News
survey of randomly sampled Jewish
News subscribers found that a quarter
of respondents who had used a health
care facility in the previous 12
months had used Sinai and 6 percent
had used the DMC's Huron Valley-
Sinai in Commerce Township. In
contrast, half of the respondents had
used Beaumont Hospital in Royal
Oak.
Beth Abraham Hillel Moses Rabbi
Aaron Bergman, born at Sinai, esti-
mates that fewer than 10 percent of
his congregants now go to Sinai,
although none have complained
about its patient care. Instead, most
of his 250 families prefer the conve-
nience of Beaumont.
"It's a shame," said Bergman.
"Beaumont is a good hospital but it's
really not a Jewish hospital. I can't
imagine Hillel (Day School) having
an art fair there." Fl
Sinai Hospital as it
looked this week.
The Deal For Si
DMC, community leaders say benefits will
continue despite hospital's closing.
JULIE WIENER
StaffWriter
hen the Detroit
Medical Center pur-
chased the historically
Jewish Sinai Hospital
in 1997, it acquired more than a
physical plant and physician con-
tracts.
It also assumed a series of rela-
tionships with — and obligations to
— six of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit's constituent
agencies.
By September, Sinai's building
will be vacated and its operations
moved to neighboring Grace
Hospital (which will be renamed
Sinai-Grace and equipped with a
kosher kitchen). But DMC officials
have promised to continue the net
work's services to the organized
Jewish community. Among these
services: free medical care for Jewish
immigrants, a support group for
Holocaust survivors, hepatitis injec-
tions for Jewish Vocational Service
approximatety
staff and donations of approximately
$ 25,000
worth of medical supplies
pplies
each summer to Tam
T arack C amps.
In return, the DMC has received
$1.8 million in grants from
The
Jewish Fund, an endowment formed
i proceeds
with the $65 million in
from Sinai's sale, as well as a yearly
Federation allocation of $131,000.
like
And although more Jewish indivdu-
als choose suburban
Beaumont and ProviaM%
spt ita
e li)M
hfo orh
o
rrn
the rPrati
s,thC's
the DMG e
increased s
better end Q :
which ge om
p
agroenjec)
cts
, calirientes tiajno\74
„„.4.44
"
nized Jewish cornrriu
The total financial value of the
man
services the DMC provides
3/5
199
Detroit Jewish News 11