PACKET EDITORIAL, Jan. 28
By: Packet Editorial
It was, in the end, inevitable.
And the clue, all along, was in the name.
Way back in its infancy, it was just plain Princeton Hospital a nice little community hospital that delivered babies, treated assorted bumps and bruises and passed more complicated cases along to larger, more sophisticated facilities.
Then, in its adolescence, it became the Medical Center at Princeton, a regional hospital offering more comprehensive services to a growing population.
And finally, it matured into the University Medical Center at Princeton, a full-fledged teaching hospital affiliated with the Robert Wood Johnson-University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey network, and one component of the newly constituted Princeton HealthCare System, providing a wide array of in-patient and out-patient services under a single administrative superstructure.
It did all this or most of it on a little parcel of land straddling the Princeton Borough-Princeton Township border along Witherspoon Street, where a converted farmhouse had accepted its first patient back in 1919. As the hospital grew first out, then up it gobbled up neighboring residential properties and turned them into medical suites, administrative offices, parking lots. Each spurt of growth was accompanied by anguish (and, in some cases, outrage) in the neighborhood.
And as patients came in increasing numbers from Montgomery and Hillsborough, from West Windsor and Plainsboro, from Cranbury, Monroe and South Brunswick, emergency vehicles encountered more and more delays trying to fight through traffic congestion in downtown Princeton.
So the handwriting was on the wall from the moment Barry Rabner walked in the door as president and CEO of what was then the Medical Center at Princeton. Under Mr. Rabner’s careful guidance, the hospital embarked on a strategic planning process that not only led to the latest name change, but also tackled the tougher question of whether it needed to grow and, if so, where.
This process was refreshingly transparent, conducted over an extended period of time and involving outreach to the community on a continuing basis. Some residents may be disappointed in the outcome, but none can complain that ample opportunity was not afforded to hear and consider all points of view before the decision was reached.
Where the hospital will move is still an open question. Somewhere in West Windsor or Plainsboro seems to be the best bet which, from Princeton’s perspective, won’t be too bad so long as it’s on this side of Route 1. This decision may or may not be influenced by Capital Health System’s announcement, made just days before Princeton’s trustees formalized their decision, to seek state approval to build a 300-bed full-service hospital in nearby Lawrence Township.
Regardless of where the hospital moves, how its employees, many of whom live in the adjacent John-Witherspoon neighborhood and now walk to work, will get to the new facility is definitely cause for concern. And what will happen to the valuable Witherspoon Street property after the hospital moves is a hugely important issue not just for the neighborhood but for the entire community.
We trust that these and other important matters will be discussed and decided with the same openness and public involvement that has marked the entire strategic planning process to this point. As much as we will miss our neighborhood hospital, we are comforted by the fact it has handled with such thoughtfulness and diligence the toughest decision it will ever face what it wants to be when it grows up.