By Ava Johnson
When you are a frontline worker, your job is not just a paycheck. It is stability and the difference between keeping your family afloat or slipping under.
That is why the proposal to move Monmouth Medical Center out of Long Branch and miles away to Tinton Falls is not just a bad idea for public health. It is a direct threat to the working people who keep this hospital running and to the communities who depend on it.
I have spent my entire adult life organizing, advocating, and standing with workers across Monmouth County. And I can tell you plainly: RWJBarnabas’ plan hits workers the hardest and most unfairly.
Let us start with the truth nobody wants to acknowledge.
Many frontline staff at MMC, especially custodial, food service, patient transport, and support roles, do not have cars. Many walk or rely on public transportation to get to work. These are the workers who feed patients, clean rooms, sterilize equipment, and keep the place functioning. They already stretch every dollar. Asking them to now travel miles, pay more for transportation, rely on spotty transit, or tack another hour onto their day is not an inconvenience. It is punitive.
RWJBarnabas leadership disclosed that only 83% of 239 service-sector workers will be retained. That is corporate speak for layoffs are coming. And the people most likely to lose their jobs are the workers who earn the least, have the fewest transportation options, and are already under strain.
That is the opposite of equity. It treats loyal workers as disposable.
And the impact does not stop with workers. Pulling a full-service hospital out of Long Branch is a blow to the very people who rely on it most, including uninsured residents, working families, seniors, and patients with chronic conditions who live near the hospital because they need to.
RWJBarnabas says they will replace the hospital with a satellite clinic. Let us be honest: a clinic is not a hospital. Long Branch would lose maternity care, cardiac care, stroke response capabilities, emergency and inpatient treatment, and the full set of services that define a regional medical center.
It is a hollowing out of the community’s healthcare system.
And then there is the process, if we can even call it that.
The New Jersey Department of Health made the baffling decision to allow RWJBarnabas to hold the official public hearing outside Long Branch, in a facility they own, farther from the community that would bear the consequences. The symbolism was not lost. The people most affected were pushed farther away.
The hearing room was tiny. Actual Long Branch residents, who, despite every barrier, made the effort to show up, were told to wait outside in the cold.
Hundreds of community members came out – elderly residents, disabled neighbors, working people rushing over after shifts. They were told the hearing was at capacity. Many waited in the cold for hours and never got inside. They never got to speak or be heard.
People walked away furious, hurt, and convinced the process was designed to minimize their voices. A hearing that the community cannot enter makes a mockery of what should be a democratic process.
If a hospital relocation is supposed to be a public decision, the public deserves better than a box-checking exercise inside a corporate-controlled space.
We need a real hearing in Long Branch, held after work hours, in a neutral venue that can hold the people who show up – not just the people the corporation wants in the seats.
I have spent decades walking picket lines, advocating for fair wages, strengthening local institutions, and fighting for the dignity of working people. I know the pressures frontline workers face. I know how much families rely on steady jobs and accessible healthcare. And I know how deeply Monmouth County residents care about their communities.
The Department of Health should reject this proposal outright.
It harms workers. It abandons Long Branch’s most vulnerable residents. It destabilizes the county’s healthcare network.
A hospital is a lifeline. Decisions about its future must be made with the community, not around them, and certainly not in rooms they cannot enter. Our workers deserve better, and Monmouth County deserves better.
It is time for the state to step in and put the community first.
Ava Johnson is a Monmouth County labor leader and community advocate.