lack of government insurance funds forces closure of Motion Picture/TV Hospital & Nursing Home

[villager]

SHOCKER!

Motion Picture & TV Fund Will Close Its Hospital And Nursing Home By End Of 2009; How Can This Happen?

The reason, according to today's unexpected announcement (made while I was gone for the afternoon), is because the MPTF's acute care hospital and long term care nursing home are losing $10 million a year. "This shortfall is expected to widen significantly in coming years. The problem is that the vast majority of hospital and LTC patients are covered by government insurance programs whose reimbursement rates have not kept pace with fast-rising operating costs. MPTF has been making up the shortfall by dipping into its investment reserves. Based on current projections, continuing to subsidize the hospital and LTC facility would likely exhaust available reserves within five years." About 100 retirees currently live in the MPTF home in Woodland Hills with what I know to be a waiting list. (Everyone I talk to always says there are not enough MPTF health care facilities, not too many!) Yet the MPTF's press release claims that the closures come because of "declining demand" and that MPTF’s acute-care hospital "for the past few years has rarely been called upon to care for more than ten patients at any one time". It says these closure decisions are the "result of more than three years of study and analysis by MPTF staff and outside experts".

So much for the Motion Picture & Television Fund's promise of "unwavering commitment" to the entertainment industry, and vice versa. This is a huge story with major ramifications for everyone who considered the Motion Picture And Television Fund facilities as their safety net in times of sickness and old age. What else might be closed next? I find it hard to believe that, with all the enormous wealth in the Hollywood, the community couldn't look after its own better than this. “MPTF is initiating these changes because it’s the right thing to do, but the fact is that we have no choice,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of the MPTF Foundation Board, said in the statement. “Although we are in good shape today, the acute-care hospital and long-term care facility are generating operating deficits that could bankrupt MPTF in a very few years." C'mon, there are fundraisers all the time, including that big-ticket Saturday "Night Before" the Oscars party hosted by Katzenberg himself. For crissakes, the old Motion Picture Relief Fund was founded back in 1921 by Hollywood luminaries Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to help people in the entertainment industry who fell on hard times. How can this be happening now? I am really sick about this, just sick.

As a result of the planned phase-outs, the 100 patients currently residing in the long-term care facility on MPTF’s Wasserman campus in Woodland Hills will be "relocated over the course of 2009 to selected nursing homes in and around Los Angeles. Every patient will be evaluated individually and matched to the most appropriate facility in the area for their particular needs and family situation. The first transfers will not begin for at least 60 days, unless a patient specifically requests to be moved sooner." MPTF’s acute-care hospital, begun in the 1940s, will continue to operate until late 2009. Thereafter, acute-care patients will receive their care at hospitals near MPTF’s Woodland Hills campus. The statement said the phase-out of the hospital and LTC unit will not affect the approximately 185 residents of MPTF’s independent- and assisted-living facilities (including the Country House, the Fran & Ray Stark Villas, and the Frances Goldwyn Lodge). MPTF’s six area health centers, which serve some 60,000 industry workers and their families, will be similarly unaffected. The Fund also intends to continue operating its Harry’s Haven memory care facility.

<snip>

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/urgent-motion-picture-television-fund-will-close-its-hospital-and-nursing-home-by-end-of-2009/

[GodlessBiker]

1. OMG. Where is Loni Anderson going to live?

[villager]

3. perhaps this will make it seem less hilarious to you:

"A letter sent by several MPTF families to chief executive David Tillman says some of the 100-plus frail residents threatened with removal to other facilities before the end of 2009, many of them in their 80s and 90s, feel “tormented” and are reluctant to eat. One woman took to her bed as soon as she heard she was being evicted and refused to get up again for a week, according to nursing staff. Another, who had been in apparently good health, died very soon after getting the news. In all, at least half a dozen residents have died since the closures were announced – a far higher death rate than usual. “Some have stated that they do not want to live if they have to leave their home here; they prefer to die right now without going on to some other place,” the letter sent to David Tillman said. Tillman declined to be interviewed for Gumbel's article..."

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/new-developments-surround-mpft-closures/

[GodlessBiker]

5. Very sad. They are being foreclosed upon like so many others.

[villager]

6. exactly so -- also note, most of these are *not* actors, but crew folk, and other retired workers

who, like so many others, thought this particular promise to them would be kept, toward the end of their lives...

[merh]

2. and some stars get well over $10 million a movie

plus residuals. Then there are the mega rich directors and producers.

They need to do a telethon - a fund drive -

[Javaman]

4. a star such as Brad Pitt could easily donate all the residuals from one of his movies to cover

the rest homes costs.

So simple. so easy.

Imagine if a star donated their salary from one movie. Say someone like julia roberts. 20 million would take care of that home and then some.

so simple. so easy.

and the thing is, neither one of these stars would miss the money.

we live in some truly sad times.

[merh]

7. just the residual

or part of their contract to include residuals to the Home/hospital.

[KamaAina]

9. Brad Pitt is involved building homes in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward

http://www.makeitrightnola.org

perhaps some other megastar could adopt this as his or her cause.

[Javaman]

10. I know he does some good stuff. I just picked his name out of the air. nt

[Donnachaidh]

11. who should be donating are the BIG producers

How fair is it to single out one or two actors when you have producers and others who have far BIGGER salaries, and receive much BIGGER cuts of blockbuster movies? New Line Cinema -- how much did THEY make from the LOTR trilogy? How much has George Lucas made from his blockbusters?

Why don't those folks step up to the plate for the elderly crew people who may have actually worked for THEM when they were beginning to make films? How much did the producers get from those crew folks when they needed advice?

It's an obscene situation.

[Hannah Bell]

12. Or the producers, studio heads & directors.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Look at the Casa Verdi for retired singers in Milan by comparison.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-602888.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.casaverdi.org/&ei=4IyQSee1D8H7tge3yqyrCw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcasa-verdi%26hl%3Den