1/30/2008

Jersey City Medical Center and Children’s Hospital
of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center Announce Agreement

Increases Services for High Risk Mothers, Newborns and Infants in Hudson County

JERSEY CITY — Obstetric and neonatal services will be enhanced at Jersey City Medical Center / Wilzig Hospital under an affiliation agreement announced today with the Children’s Hospital of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, part of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System.

The agreement will provide Jersey City Medical Center with a
full-time maternal fetal medicine specialist for the new Prenatal Diagnosis and Treatment Center, for patients with high-risk pregnancies, for patients in the inpatient obstetrics unit, and to teach residents. It also provides 24-hour neonatology coverage for the Jersey City Medical Center neonatal intensive care unit. Newark Beth Israel Medical Center also will provide co-directors for the perinatal and neonatal service.

The Children’s Hospital of New Jersey serves as a major referral center for hospitals throughout the New York-New Jersey area. The new agreement with Jersey City Medical Center will allow both sites to function as expert referral centers for families throughout the Essex and Hudson County regions.

As the designated Regional Perinatal Center of Hudson County, Jersey City Medical Center already offers highly specialized services for newborns, including the county’s only Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

“Jersey City Medical Center has a long history of providing extensive services to mothers and babies in Hudson County.
This new relationship enhances our excellent facilities and resources for mothers and babies and allows us to better meet
the complex health care needs of the population of Hudson County,” said Joseph Scott, President and CEO of LibertyHealth System. “The agreement also improves access for our patients to the specialty OB/GYN and pediatric services offered at Newark Beth Israel.”

“The Children’s Hospital of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center offers an outstanding team that provides much needed specialized care for newborns and mothers,” says Ronald J. Del Mauro, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System. “We are pleased that, through this affiliation, more families will have an enhanced level of care.”

Morris Cohen, M.D., Director of Neonatal Medicine at Children’s Hospital of New Jersey, and Joseph R. Ivan, M.D., FACOG, Acting Chair in the Department of OB/GYN at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Co-Director of Labor and Delivery, will be the new
co-directors of the NICU and Regional Perinatal Center at Jersey City Medical Center. They join Dr. Suhail Alsheikh, M.D., Chief of Neonatology at Jersey City Medical Center. In addition, Joseph Polcaro, D.O., FACOG., is Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Jersey City Medical Center and its new Center for Prenatal Diagnosis and Treatment.

The affiliation agreement formalizes the collaboration between Jersey City Medical Center / Wilzig Hospital and Children’s Hospital of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center that began this fall with the Center for Prenatal Diagnosis and Treatment. This unique center, the most comprehensive prenatal care facility in Hudson County, provides state-of-the-art technology, including 3D and 4D ultrasound, along side maternal fetal medicine specialists, a prenatal nurse coordinator, genetic counselors and other prenatal medical specialties.

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