Spring Valley, NY – Monsey Health Center, Filled with Dead Birds and Mice, Ordered Shut

Spring Valley, NY – A taxpayer-funded clinic run by a Monsey organization that provides health services to low-income residents has been ordered closed because its building has dead birds, mice, animal droppings and other unsanitary conditions, officials said yesterday.

The Ben Gilman Clinic won’t be allowed to reopen until the building is thoroughly cleaned and numerous village and county code violations are corrected, officials said.

“The people who use that center are sick – they have a right to expect a reasonable level of cleanliness,” Spring Valley Building Inspector Walter Booker said yesterday. “That building is dangerous.”

He ordered the center at 175 Route 59 closed late Thursday after he was asked by the Rockland Department of Health to inspect it.

Booker said he found bird droppings throughout the building, including in patient examination rooms, dental treatment areas and in the medical laboratory.

“There was excrement dripping down the walls,” he said.

He also saw evidence of dead birds and mice in the ceilings, walls and ventilation system, he said. There were birds flying through the building as well as a strong odor.

The Rockland Department of Health found similar conditions when it inspected, according to Judi Hunderfund, assistant director of environmental health. It has issued a violation ordering the conditions corrected, she said.

The Ben Gilman Clinic is a satellite center of Community Medical and Dental Inc. of Monsey, a large health center on Robert Pitt Drive headed by Mendel Hoffman.

The Monsey Center was closed yesterday because of the Jewish holiday of Shavout.

But spokesman Daniel Friedman said late Thursday that the organization voluntarily closed the Spring Valley Center to clean it, adding that it would probably be closed throughout next week.

The Gilman clinic has long had a tense relationship with the community it serves.

Advocates predicted that word of bad conditions in the clinic would make that relationship worse.

“Our community will be outraged by this,” said Willie Trotman, president of the Spring Valley branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which filed an unsuccessful discrimination suit against the clinic three years ago. “What kind of professional care are they giving if there are birds flying around in there?”

Spring Valley resident Gwenette Lindsey said she was in the clinic earlier this week and found staff members wearing surgical masks because of the odor.

“The smell could have knocked you down,” she said. “They should have closed that place a long time ago.”

Patients arriving at the center yesterday were shocked to find the doors closed and a large notice on the door warning that the building was unsafe.

“I can’t believe this,” said Ernest Merilus, a New City resident who was trying to make an appointment for his mother. “It’s really outrageous.”

As he stood outside the main door of the clinic, the sound of birds could be heard coming from inside the building.

“They should run this place better than they do,” Merilus said before walking away from the clinic.

Notices were posted in English, Spanish and Creole telling patients to call Community Medical and Dental Inc. of Monsey for assistance.

But many people said they tried to call that number yesterday and no one answered. A call placed by The Journal News yesterday also went unanswered. The Monsey clinic appeared to be closed for the Shavout holiday, which began Thursday and ends tonight.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” asked Ferdinand Germain, who was at the clinic with papers showing he had just been discharged from Nyack Hospital and referred to the Gilman center for outpatient care.

The state Department of Health is also investigating conditions at the Gilman clinic, said spokeswoman Beth Goldberg. It also will inform the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which funds the center.

Monsey Community Medical and Dental Care recently received $268,523 in federal stimulus money that it pledged to use for a new cardiologist and nutritionist for patients in both Spring Valley and Monsey.

Goldberg said the Gilman clinic has a responsibility to provide patients with referrals to other medical services while it is closed.

The state has cited the Gilman clinic in the past. A 2005 inspection revealed dirty conditions, including dried blood on a countertop, surgical instruments improperly sterilized, stained and sagging ceiling tiles, and medications improperly stored, according to state records.

Those violations were corrected, records show.

Booker said he was issuing a violation letter yesterday to Hoffman, as well as the building’s owner, Spring Fifty Nine Associates, in care of Armand Lasky of East Rockaway, N.Y., and Lewis Woo, who holds a lease for the building.

Community leaders have often maintained that the center’s predominately black and Hispanic patients are treated rudely by the staff – a claim that clinic operators have denied.

Two years ago, the Spring Valley NAACP filed a human rights complaint against the center, claiming that it discriminated by closing on Saturdays to accommodate the Jewish Sabbath.

The complaint was dismissed. NAACP officials met with Hoffman, who agreed to consider opening the center on Saturdays, after the Sabbath.

Hoffman announced plans in February to open the clinic for service on Saturdays and Jewish holidays.

It was unclear if that ever happened. Clinic hours posted on the door yesterday indicated that it was regularly closed Saturdays and Sundays.

The NAACP’s complaint also alleged that the center discriminated in transferring black patients to the Spring Valley clinic and white or Jewish patients to the sister Monsey Medical and Dental Center in Monsey. Black patients were being transferred without their consent, the complaint alleged.

Even though patients’ records had been moved from one clinic to the other, the state Division of Human Rights ruled that the clinic had not segregated patients by race.

Trotman yesterday said there needed to be more accountability from the clinic.

“We’re taxpayers,” he said. “They’re using our money. We deserve to get first-rate care.”