Buffalo Rising Online

... and, wouldn't it have made sense to move Children's over there as well; as opposed to trying to shoe-horn in their plans for expansion into our residential nieghborhood?

now how was my previous post deleted? Enough deleting... let comments stand! There was no profanity or undue criticism.

Two things here:

1) Children's should have moved to the medical campus. Children's future would be much more secured on the campus. On Elmwood its sadly only going to deteriorate at a slow pace.

2) Why does Kaleida need a portion of Ellicot or Goodrich? I'm sure they could just build over the road without making it more frusterating to drive dowtown.

I also don't understand the need for them to take over a city street. The medical campus is already difficult at best to navigate. Also Ellicott Street is supposed to be their MAIN Street, the one they are going to spend millions redesigning and upgrading to create a nice streetscape for the campus to hang off of. Cutting it off makes no sense what so ever.

We complain about navigating in downtown.. because we chopped up the streets. We are only a couple more streets away from creating a medical campus rat maze with how many streets pointlessly dead end, bend, curve, etc...

Just a refresher on commenting- After you hit "Add Your Comment"- DO NOT navigate away from the page until the comment takes/page refreshes. If you click away before your comment uploads, your comment disappears. There was one comment deleted from this thread- a double-post by hodgepodge.

Move the Psych center? Or does that not fit????

Just throwing it out there

Let's hope, but try navigating someone from one side of the campus to the other.. better odds to just avoid the place and go down Main or Michigan. A place that we should be proud of and want to show off should also be a place that you can intuitively navigate through and too. Right now Its a maze of one ways, disjointed streets, and dead ends. Look at Elm, N Oak, or Virginia streets as examples; they start stop, bend into one-ways and create a real mess. By taking either Ellicott or Goodrich 'off the grid' means there will only be 3 streets left in the whole campus that travel the length & width of the campus and if Ellicott is the one to go there will be NO north south streets that run the length of the campus anymore.

PS love all the parking in that image above... Time to start building up. ;-)

I think they should try to reopen some of the streets they have closed off by demolshing some buildings.

and I would make sure they build excess space with extra floors for doctors offices, admin, etc so they dont have to waste more land with these 1-2 story suburban monstrosities

Some further thoughts about Children’s Hospital (now known as Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo (WCHoB)). If WCHoB had moved to Buffalo General (BuffGen) it would be basically gone. Every service would have simply been integrated into existing (or somewhat related) departments at BuffGen. Duplication in staffing would of course not have been let to happen and positions would go to those with the most seniority (which unfortunately does not always equate to best qualified). A token gesture was made to allocate a few floors of BuffGen to be WCHoB (in name only I can assure you). The residents who complained about the departure of WCHoB had very valid reasons to be concerned…and still do (more on that later). The area that they want to expand into is owned by WCHoB, no families being displaced. The surest way to keep the world class service at WCHoB is to let it continue to pursue that level of service. By no means am I suggesting a blank check, but they own the land, and in the end this will result in more jobs and better care for our children. If we block and / or hassle WCHoB at every turn, then rest assured, WCHoB will go away. They will bland out the services until there is no reason to maintain the facility. Maybe Buffalo Rising readers would benefit from an article written by one of the BRO staff after taking a tour of WCHoB. WCHoB is far too important an asset to our region to offhandedly suggest its demise.

If there is a surplus of hospital beds in this area --- WHY --- did Millard Suburban expand? It would seem to me that all these extra beds could be been kepts at Gates.

Josua:

The population has shifted mainly toward Amherst from Buffalo.

CKBUFFALO - Please don't tell me the obvious (not trying to sound peed off at you). I think it is foolish to spend money that is frankly not there to begin with. Use the bulidings that are currently constructed and the people are just going to have to simply travel a bit to get to the hospital. This wouldn't have happened if people would have just stayed in the City.

Children's Hospital does not have a long-term plan to stay in the Elmwood-Bryant-Hodge area. Their current plan is a short-sighted and illogical quick fix. In not many years they will be facing once again a splintered and obsolete campus that will require more demolition of good housing and permanent aggravation of residents in the area. Their move to the medical corridor is inevitable, and they know it. It's in the neighborhood's and Kaleida's and the patients' long- term best interest to graft WCHOB onto the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

Understandable, but the money should have been spent on Gates - to restore and keep the hospital in the City. If the best hospital is in the City then people would have to work there. Buffalo is a hot bed in the medical field and should be commended for it's hard work keeping the medical campus alive and GROWING!

Support the City - people need to do this more. The City is on the move and I can't wait to hop on the wagon for a longer ride.

Understandable, but the money should have been spent on Gates - to restore and keep the hospital in the City. If the best hospital is in the City then people would have to work there. Buffalo is a hot bed in the medical field and should be commended for it's hard work keeping the medical campus alive and GROWING!

Support the City - people need to do this more. The City is on the move and I can't wait to hop on the wagon for a longer ride.

Joshua - Amherst has over 110,000 residents which is about 40% the size of Buffalo's 280,000. Buffalo has at least five hospitals not counting Millard Gates: Buffalo General, ECMC, Mercy, Sisters, and Womens/Childrens.

Wanting to punish Amherst for no reason by not allowing it to have even ONE hospital so that Buffalo can keep SIX hospitals is the kind of backwards attitude that would cause more people and companies to leave WNY and fewer to move here (not that many move here anyhow). At least two-thirds of Erie Co residents don't want to live in Buffalo.

Get over the idea that Buffalo is morally superior to Amherst and somehow more deserving of nearby hospital care. It isn't. Amherst's population more than justifies the presence of ONE high quality hospital. Just because you prefer urban life doesn't mean everybody does.

AtwaterLouse and RisingDamp live in Amherst. They seems to be supporting the 'burbs here. Ummm, I don't know here?! I guess this section would be called AmherstRising.

My point was NOT that Amherst shouldn't have a hospital - it has for years. My complaint was that there is money going to expand a hospital, when the money is not really there and there are also hospitals closing and merging.

So, I guess there are other points of view here and I am going to keep mine. This website is called BuffaloRising, correct?

from the majority of the comments throughout the site, i think they should rename the blog to "temperatureRising"

Pundit - yes I was in the pre-renovated Millard Suburban. I'm not saying that Amherst shouldn't have a hospital or do renovations, why did they need to increase the amount of beds. In light of decreasing population and the surplus of beds in other hospitals - which had to close. Appartently, my point must be getting across to some and not to others. Not everyone lives in the City and that's too bad here.

So, the improvements being done to MFSH have everything to do with this. 1) This is a post of how the services at Gates are going to be transfered to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus ( THE HOSPITAL IS CLOSING). 2) The declining population and thus the reason why hospitals are closing.

People are turing a blind eye to the effects of more buildings that may be vacant or leveled for parking lot use. I guess Buffalopundit, should be Amherstpundit also.

tony - no AmherstRising.

Joshua - Wrong again.

AtwaterLouse and RisingDamp live in Amherst.

I don't know about Damp (and don't care), but I live in the city. Anyhow what difference should it make where anybody lives?

What I was supporting was the idea that geography and population density/distrubution are one important and prefectly reasonable factor in where hospitals are located along with how many beds, upgrades, etc. This should be so obvious it goes without saying.

Your point seems to be that even if population expands over time in and around political entity 'A', hospital facilities should never ever be expanded or upgraded in 'A', because you Joshua on a personal level prefer some things about political entity 'B'.

Let's start with some reality. First, Buffalo is most definitely NOT a hotbed for medical anything. Buffalonians increasingly travel to Rochester, Pittsburgh, Cleveland...even Erie for what they consider to be superior services. With the exception of RPCI, our hospitals and our doctors are unremarkable at best. The UB Medical School is ranked in the lowest quartile of medical schools nationally. Here's the problem...It's hard to attract good doctors because they want to be associated with medical excellence...and it's hard to become excellent without great doctors. The very idea that Buffalo will somehow catapault into the major league of health care because we locate all our services downtown is nonsence. Who thinks that spending tax dollars on a new hospital is going to jump start the economic engine of prosperity? Health care spending doesn't lead to other economic development. It hasn't worked elsewhere and it won't work here. The medical corridor will benefit only BGH and the developers...not the citizens of Buffalo and Erie County.

Secondly, the Berger Commission report DID recommend that the beds at Millard Fillmore Gates Circle be decertified and that the facility be closed.