Rep. Frank Pallone
Monmouth Hospital in Long Branch. Internet photo.
Proposed Vogel Hospital in RWJ campus .
By Paul Goldfinger, MD, FACC. Thank you to Jersey Shore Hurricane New’s post.
ANNOUNCEMENT BY REP FRANK PALLONE REGARDING PLANS TO CLOSE MONMOUTH HOSPITAL AND BUILD A NEW FULL SERVICE FACILITY IN TINTON FALLS.
Blogfinger.net has edited the announcement below:
“U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-6) today announced his strong opposition to RWJ Barnabas Health’s (RWJBH) plan to move its hospital from Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch to a new hospital in Tinton Falls. (Fort Monmouth.). The plan would move key services such as labor and delivery, acute care in-patient beds and the hospital license to the new facility in Tinton Falls leaving behind a shell of the current services.
“This plan puts profits over working people in order to build a concierge hospital for wealthier patients,” said Congressman Frank Pallone. “Effectively closing Long Branch’s hospital will leave thousands of families without access to health care and will further strain other hospitals in the region.
“The people of Long Branch deserve to keep their hospital.
“Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch has widely been recognized for its outstanding quality and dedication to patient safety and experience.
“MMC serves thousands of low-income and minority residents in Long Branch and the region.
“On October 16th, the Department of Health deemed the RWJBH application complete, which triggers a requirement for the hospital system and the Department of Health to hold separate public hearings before a final decision is rendered within 120 days.”
BLOGFINGER EDITORIAL: 10/19/25
The corporatization of healthcare has resulted in many issues including the situation above. We have been reporting at Blogfinger.net. on this topic ever since Obamacare appeared on the scene years ago. I wrote about my concerns regarding quality care and the loss of the “doctor patient relationship.”
About 2 years ago, my urologist’s group, based in Neptune, informed me that they were joining the medical staff at Monmouth Hospital in Long Branch (Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas) and they would not be able to take care of me at Jersey Shore (Hackensack-Meridian.). I changed urologist to one closer to Ocean Grove and got an early taste of what was brewing in medicine.
For years I have thought that Meridian had made a mistake in not creating a large and beautiful healthcare campus on Route 66. Instead they chose to join with Hackensack and turn the old Neptune Hospital into an old-fashioned mish-mash on Rt 33. They can call it a “university hospital” and claim to be a modern medical center. But it looks like RWJ Barnabas will be taking the lead around here.
RWJBH had planned ahead, purchasing a large piece of land in the old Fort Monmouth spending $8 million which sounds like a bargain today.
Interestingly, Hackensack Meridian has been dabbling in new medical facilities at the new Monmouth Mall, but the RWJ Tinton Falls plan sounds a lot more exciting for the future.
One gets the impression that RWJ has been slowly and quietly planning their entrance into Monmouth County, and now they are bursting into the open. I noticed a medical facility on Rt 35 north with a RWJ sign, but I never could figure out what that was about. Maybe we now know.
Corporate health companies are competing with each other for healthcare customers. (ie patients.). The money at stake is massive.
So healthcare in this area by RWJBH will evolve into a magnificent facility carefully planned for Tinton Falls at the Fort Monmouth location, and RWJ Barnabas will continue to expand into a first class medical operation here with many benefits and clinics for those of us who live in this region. Their new acute care hospital will be state-of-the art with about 250 beds. And their medical school will be located there as well as a nursing school.
They are already building a Cancer Center at Fort Monmouth which will link with the new Rutgers Cancer Center in New Brunswick. RWJ will dominate healthcare in this region. As for Hackensack Meridian in this shore area, it will take second place to RWJ.