Brooks Memorial Hospital in Dunkirk.

A commission convened to review the Brooks-TLC Hospital System Inc. proposal for a new northern Chautauqua County medical facility calls the building “essential” and also supports a micro hospital with an adjacent outpatient center.

“It is in the best interests of all parties for New York state to do what is necessary to see this project accomplished,” notes the report, which took two months to compile.

Commission members also put forth that the facility can be sustained — if, and only if:

¯ Kaleida Health assumes full responsibility for it via a full asset merger with Brooks-TLC.

¯ Kaleida is able to maintain a sufficient base of providers in the area that will refer to the new hospital.

¯ Kaleida is willing and able to absorb the ongoing financial consequences of this arrangement.

If the proposed project between Brooks-TLC and Kaleida cannot be accomplished, the commission recommends “a strong alternative partner should be sought as soon as possible to ensure that the health-care needs of the community are met.”

Brooks-TLC, which was awarded funds for the new facility beginning in March 2016, is still waiting for some $70 million to be released by the state to begin to move ahead with the building of a state-of-the-art facility in Fredonia on East Main Street near the roundabout. While the report does not include a timeline, it does make the case for a new building.

“Brooks is, and would be, the only hospital in a 70-mile long area from Buffalo to Jamestown,” the report said, noting Jamestown is 29 miles away with Westfield 19 miles away from Dunkirk-Fredonia. “The distances involved are complicated by the reality that the area lies entirely within the ‘snow belt’ south of Buffalo, an area known nationwide for its regular encounters with huge lake-effect snowstorms. What’s more, without Brooks, transportation routes, both ground and aerial, to the nearest hospital also lie within the snow belt. The implications for life and limb are obvious.”

Plans for the Brooks-TLC micro hospital, according to the report, call for emergency services with 12 bays, 15 medical and surgical beds, four surgical suites and two rooms for procedure, imaging with CT scans, MRI and ultrasound, stat lab services, a pharmacy, support services and a helipad. Commission members believe a move to the new facility and a greater partnership with Kaleida will reduce annual deficits that currently hover around $10 million annually.

“Like many other hospitals in the U.S., Brooks will see patients delivering in the Emergency Department and patients cared for extensively until they can be transferred,” the report notes. “There is no reason to believe that Brooks, like those other hospitals, will not be up to the challenge.”

Commission members were chosen by state Sen. George Borrello, Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel and Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas. They include: Chairman Richard Ketcham, former chief executive officer of Brooks; Dr. Robert Berke, who served in the past as county helath commissioner; Anthony J. Cooper, who previously served as president and chief executive officer of the Arnot Health System in Elmira; and Charles Nazzaro, who served as chief financial officer for UPMC Chautauqua.

Goodell on Thursday praised the efforts put forth by the committee. “Their work and findings are phenomenal,” he said.