Let Miriam Hospital expand

Now, the hospital has been forced to file suit in Superior Court to challenge the moratorium.

Miriam Hospital should prevail in court. But it is unfortunate that the hospital will have to spend time and money to do so.

The Providence City Council, bending to the pressure of neighbors of the East Side hospital, placed the moratorium on the hospital in June. Council members said it would allow them to study how the hospital’s expansion project would impact the neighborhood.

But the hospital has met all the requirements it has been asked to meet, including securing the approval of the state Department of Health to build the new surgical center.

The project in question does not require an expansion of Miriam’s institutional zone, it does not require a zoning variance and it would not encroach beyond the hospital’s existing footprint.

Miriam is well within its rights to proceed with an expansion project that is critical to its future success.

The $25 million project would double the hospital’s inpatient surgical space and replace 10 cramped operating rooms with 10 new ones. The hospital’s plan calls for the construction of a three-story building along Seventh Street, the second floor of which would house the new surgical center.

Miriam would also like to relocate its radiology department to the first floor of the building and include a new cafeteria, conference rooms and a gift shop.

Miriam recently hosted an open house to allow neighbors to review the plans and express their concerns. Some of the neighbors would like to see Miriam expand elsewhere, perhaps along North Main Street.

There is a sense that while residents may be concerned about this expansion, their larger concern is that Miriam will continue to grow and further encroach on homes in the neighborhood. That concern has no business fueling the moratorium in question.

The City Council has an obligation to work with neighbors and Miriam officials to help the two sides to get along as best they can. But in placing a moratorium on the hospital, the City Council went too far – displaying a blatant disregard for a business that has long served its community well, providing not only health care, but jobs to many.

From a business perspective, the project is critical to Miriam. Hospital officials say their operating rooms and imaging equipment is so old that without an upgrade, patients and doctors may be driven to competing hospitals.

That would put the hospital’s very existence in jeopardy. And that would be a decidedly bad thing for the neighborhood.