UPDATE: Officials Insist Hoboken Univ. Medical Center Won't Close

Hoboken University Medical Center will stay open, hospital officials announced during a meeting with the press Friday afternoon. 

A transition memo by the state sub-committee on health to Governor Chris Christie states that Hoboken University Medical Center will close in the next few months.  

"It's like a doctor walking down the street and saying: 'that person is going to die,'" said Joan Quigley, spokeswoman for the hospital. "There's no diagnosis whatsoever."

HUMC was among nine hospitals that received $40 million in funding from the Corzine Administration in December, 2009. The HUMC received $7 million. 

Quigley and the medical center's CEO Spiros Hatiras said the hospital will present its budget for 2010 to the board on Wednesday. That will show that there's a $3 million surplus, Hatiras said. 

The hospital currently has a $2.4 million deficit, Hatiras said. The total budget is roughly $140 million. 

A $2.4 million deficit on a budget of that size is no reason to close a hospital, Hatiras said.

"While many of the hospitals receiving aid met the above criteria, at least one hospital, Hoboken University Medical Center, will close in the next few months even given this grant funding. We view this as a misuse of limited state resources for health care stabilization," the sub-committee wrote. 

Hospital officials were shocked and surprised upon reading the report. 

"We don't know where the recommendation came from," Quigley said. "We do have a balanced budget."

The report lays out an analysis of the most critical issues facing the New Jersey Department of Health & Senior Services and is 18 pages long. The sub-committee on health is part of Christie's transition team and this report is one of 19 memorandums the governor received today. 

All the hospitals who received stabilization money applied for the grant. All of the nine hospitals were going to close the hospital or an essential part of the hospital without the money. 

"Why did they pick on us?" Hatiras asked. "I'm baffled."

"Its intent is not and should not be to temporarily float a failing hospital without a sustainable business model that would close as soon as such funding ended," the report states about state funding to hospitals. 

At 3 p.m. the CEO and the spokeswoman will be informing the employees of the hospital that there "is nothing to worry about," Quigley said. 

Mayor Dawn Zimmer had been reaching out to the governor's office on Friday, said spokesman Dan Bryan.

The mayor, in her office on Friday afternoon, said she could not comment but that she'd be sending out a statement later today. 

Kelly Feeney contributed reporting.