Milford Regional says casino's effects are 'underestimated
MILFORD —
After being denied funding in Foxwoods’s host agreement with the town, Milford Regional Medical Center continues to maintain that Foxwoods' planned casino will place an added burden on its facility.
During host agreement negotiations between selectmen and Foxwoods, the hospital requested a little more than $7 million.
Foxwoods has proposed building a $1 billion, 980,000-square-foot resort-casino at I-495 and Rte. 16.
“We do believe that Foxwoods’ prediction of only one additional visit a day significantly underestimated the potential effect of the casino on our volume and demand in our services,” wrote Frank Saba, the CEO of Milford Regional Medical Center, in a letter to Foxwoods’ CEO Scott Butera.
Based on the casino’s projections and the hospital’s recent studies, Saba estimates the average daily emergency room visits would increase by 13 visitors a day.
He said with the casino’s estimate of 50,000 visits per week and their daily employees, Milford’s population will increase by about 8,000 daily. Saba’s estimate of 13 visits per day assumes a corresponding increase of emergency visits per population.
Saba also said he spoke with colleagues in Connecticut and other casino towns to receive an anecdotal evaluation of a casino’s effects.
“Those facilities did see, over time, an increase in volume and specifically, an increase in patients with alcohol and substance abuse issues as well as patients with illnesses typical of the elderly, who tend to be frequent visitors to casinos,” Saba wrote.
The town’s attorneys, however, said they could only show an increase of 300 medical calls, not guaranteed to translate into an ambulance run to the hospital, and therefore could not encourage the developers to provide payments to the hospital.
According to a Foxwoods spokesman, casino officials are still talking with the hospital and there's a possibility of some mitigation money, though nothing definite has been agreed upon.
The hospital’s initial request included an upfront payment of $5 million toward the expansion of the hospital, a $55 million project proposed in 2011 that would expand the emergency room to accommodate up to 70,000 visits a year and would more than double the number of intensive care unit beds.
Additional money was also sought to cover seven new employees at the hospital, including three nurses to handle increased emergency room volume and increased cases of substance/alcohol abuse and patients with mental or other health problems.
On top of funding for the current hospital site, Saba also proposed creating an on-site medical facility, with Foxwoods contracting the services out to Milford Regional. The on-site facility would serve employees and customers and include an urgent care clinic operating during the day and evening.
The on-site facility would include hiring 10 new employees at a total cost of nearly $2.5 million annually.
http://www.milforddailynews.com/topstories/x348802777/Milford-Regional-says-casinos-effects-are-underestimated
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