[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1907-E1908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            TRIBUTE TO THE LIFE OF GENE McCABE, A TRUE HERO

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                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 5, 1998

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to my dear friend, 
Eugene McCabe, who

[[Page E1908]]

passed away September 29th at the age of 61.
  Fulfilling his commitment to the health needs of his community, Mr. 
McCabe, against all odds, conceived and built a first-class hospital in 
Harlem, in the center of my Congressional District.
  Friends have used words like ``dogged persistence'' to describe the 
passion that drove him. Above all, he was a man who loved his family, 
his people and his community, and was determined to do the best for 
them.
  I am proud to honor Mr. McCabe who made a difference in his life and 
has left a precious legacy for future generations. I commend to my 
colleagues the following tribute by Jack Newfield which appeared in the 
New York Post.

                 [From the New York Post, Oct. 5, 1998]

             City Lost True Hero With Hospital Head's Death

                           (By Jack Newfield)

       Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are great, but they are not the 
     only heroes in the world.
       There are quiet heroes on a smaller scale all over this 
     city. It's just that their good works don't get on television 
     and are not performed before 50,000 fans.
       One such hero of the city died the other day. His name is 
     Gene McCabe, and the whole city should know his name, and 
     know his story.
       I knew Gene McCabe for 15 years. He was a dignified healer 
     in a vulgar time. He was a long-distance runner in a season 
     of sprinters.
       McCabe founded and ran a great hospital called North 
     General in Harlem, an institution that saved lives, created 
     2,000 jobs, revived a whole neighborhood, built housing and 
     survived constant fiscal crises.
       In the plague years of AIDS, crack, and health-care budget 
     cuts, McCabe's hospital provided the best possible care to 
     the poor dependent on Medicare and Medicaid.
       You should know three things about Gene McCabe that made 
     him tick. He was a Marine. He was a climber of mountains. And 
     his role model was his own father, a respected civic leader 
     in New Haven.
       Gene died at 61, in the hospital he created. When he was 
     told his breast cancer was terminal, he asked to die in his 
     own hospital, surrounded by his own employees.
       Gene could have been anything in Harlem. He was smart, 
     efficient, honest and wonderful with people.
       Mayor Dinkins offered him a big job with a car and driver, 
     but he said no, thanks.
       The Clinton administration wanted him to run the Harlem 
     Empowerment Zone, but North General was his mission.
       He was the sort of inner-directed man who did not need the 
     external validation of reading his name in the papers, or 
     sitting on the dais of banquets honoring him.
       Creating a first-rate hospital in Harlem was Gene's dream 
     nobody could defer. It was his flower in the sun he did not 
     let dry up.
       A professionally managed, community-oriented hospital 
     became Gene's dream in 1979, when the Hospital for Joint 
     Diseases abandoned Harlem, and the city targeted Sydenham 
     Hospital for closing.
       The dream came true only after repeated brushes, with 
     extinction. The hospital didn't make financial sense on 
     paper. But you can't quantify determination and sacrifice on 
     paper.
       The hospital opened with no assets. It averted bankruptcy 
     in 1988 with $150 million in state bonds, arranged by Mario 
     Cuomo and the late David Axelrod.
       At one point the hospital couldn't maintain a bank account 
     because there was a lien by the IRS. Gene had spent his last 
     dollar for medicine and gurneys.
       At another point, Gene had to persuade Dennis Rivera, the 
     militant leader of the hospital workers' union, to forgive a 
     debt of $6 million to the union's pension fund, so the 
     hospital could stay open.
       ``I loved Gene,'' Rivera said yesterday. ``I would not have 
     done this for any other hospital CEO. Gene was so honest. He 
     had no patronage at that hospital. It wasn't like Lincoln or 
     Kings County.''
       Recently, North General received a 98 percent rating for 
     the quality of its care from the Joint Commission on 
     Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
       This put North General in the top 4 percent of 5,200 
     hospitals surveyed--amazing for an institution where 90 
     percent of patients are on Medicare or Medicaid.
       ``The morale of my members is so wonderful at North 
     General,'' Rivera said. ``That's why we forgave the debt.''
       Every day, Gene was the last person to leave the hospital. 
     The women who changed the bedpans say Gene knew their names 
     and asked about their family problems.
       They saw him mop up spills and pick up pieces of paper.
       North General had so many near-death experiences, the staff 
     adopted the Motown song ``Ain't No Stopping Us Now'' as its 
     theme song. The board of directors sang it after every 
     rescue.
       Basil Paterson, the former deputy mayor, was Gene's best 
     friend, and the lawyer for the hospital.
       ``It was Gene's competitiveness that saved the hospital,'' 
     Paterson said yesterday.
       ``Gene was normally gentle and diplomatic,'' Paterson 
     recalled, ``but I once saw him climb over a table to assault 
     the executive of another hospital who was jeopardizing North 
     General's chances for survival.
       ``He was so wise, and discreet, I told him all my 
     secrets,'' the elder statesman of Harlem politics added, 
     famous himself for secret-keeping and wisdom.
       ``Gene is irreplaceable,'' he added with a sad sigh.
       Yesterday I visited the spotless hospital with artworks in 
     the lobby, and spoke to Gene's widow, Elsie Crum.
       She told me the story of how, years ago, Gene befriended a 
     young woman he met bagging groceries at a local Harlem 
     supermarket.
       Gene became her mentor, and now this woman is about to 
     graduate from Harvard Medical School.
       She could work anywhere in the nation.
       But she is coming back to Harlem, to work at North General.
       That's the kind of hospital it is.
       That's the kind of human being Gene McCabe was.

       

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