Harford Memorial

Leonard E. Cantrell Jr. has resigned as president and chief executive officer of the Upper Chesapeake Health System, which operates Harford Memorial and Fallston General hospitals.The resignation, which took effect Nov. 27, was announced Dec. 1.A brief press release announcing the resignation said Mr. Cantrell's replacement would be named early next year.Allan Acton, Upper Chesapeake's vice president for marketing, declined to comment on the resignation.Frederick O. Mitchell, president of the board of directors of Upper Chesapeake, will be interim president.

The staff of the Maryland Health Resources Planning Commission has recommended approval for a new hospital in Bel Air, Upper Chesapeake Health System announced yesterday.Upper Chesapeake operates both hospitals in Harford County, Fallston Memorial and Harford Memorial.The plans, which will go through hearings in September before a final decision, call for a 120-bed, $60 million hospital in Bel Air to replace the 184-bed Fallston General. Harford Memorial, in Havre de Grace, now licensed for 300 beds, would be reduced to 120 acute beds.

The Harford County Health Planning Commission has voted to support Upper Chesapeake Health System's hospital plan, withsome recommendations.The board, made up of community members, voted 11-1 with one abstention to endorse an exemption from a state certificate of need for Upper Chesapeake's consolidation project.Upper Chesapeake, a nonprofit medical-management group, is the parent company of the county's two hospitals, Fallston General Hospital and Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace.

Harford Memorial elects Arfaa staff presidentDr. H. A. Arfaa, president-elect of the Harford County Medical Association, was elected president of the medical staff at Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace. He also was named chairman of the medical executive committee at Harford Memorial and is a member of the board of directors of the Upper Chesapeake Health System.He also is a representative of the Harford County Medical Association Legislative Committee of Med Chi in Annapolis.Dr.

Upper Chesapeake Health System, a medical-management group affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Health System, has purchased 25 acres at Route 24 and West MacPhail Road as a potential site for a medical office building or hospital."

Upper Chesapeake Health recently honored volunteers from Harford Memorial Hospital and Upper Chesapeake Medical Center at the Annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. The volunteer service hours from Harford Memorial Hospital and Upper Chesapeake Medical Center totaled 81,118 hours for the past year. Volunteers serving between 500 and 1, 415 hours annually who were honored included: David McComber, Herta Vaught, Mary Sporney, Nancy Wiley, Adele Friedman, Marion Schmidt, Marge Gyenis, Robert Holmes, George Freeman, Jackie VanNostrand, Ella Murphy, Mercedes Johnsen, Bobbie Rhoda, Mary Welshons, Mac Lewis and Tom Mantz.

State health-care regulators have clarified the manner in which Upper Chesapeake Health System can proceed with its plans to build a new hospital near Bel Air and consolidate existing services in Harford County.The decision Tuesday by the Maryland Health Resources Planning Commission was in response to a request in January by Upper Chesapeake, a medical-management group that operates Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace and Fallston General Hospital.Upper Chesapeake wants to close Fallston, scale back Harford Memorial operations and build a $44.8 million hospital on the Route 24 corridor between Abingdon and Bel Air. It also wants to transfer the pediatrics and obstetrics departments from Harford Memorial to the new facility, a proposal opposed by some residents.

It's likely to be September before the organization that runs Harford County's two hospitals submits its final proposal to state regulators for a new $60 million hospital in Bel Air, Upper Chesapeake Health System officials said.Meanwhile, the organization's new community relations coordinator, former County Councilman Philip J. Barker, is trying to win community support for Upper Chesapeake's plan to replace Fallston General with a new facility in Bel Air and reduce Harford Memorial's operations in Havre de Grace.

A Havre de Grace doctor is suing Harford Memorial Hospital, its parent company and three administrators for $37.1 million in U.S. District Court over his dismissal as the facility's chief of radiology.Dr. Brad M. Cogan charges the defendants violated federal anti-trust laws when he was fired in February 1991 because of his plans to open aprivate radiology facility.Cogan was fired from the Havre de Grace hospital in the middle ofa second five-year contract, which the doctor says did not prohibit him from operating a competing practice.

Upper Chesapeake Health will offer a free information session on Laparoscopic Gastric Banding, a new procedure recently added to the Bariatric Surgery Program. The session will be held at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 21 at Harford Memorial Hospital in the Havre de Grace Room. Information: 443-843-6360. Free seminar to give tips on joint pain Upper Chesapeake Health will hold a free seminar on joint pain with William Cook, a board certified orthopedic surgeon, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 21 at Harford Memorial Hospital in the side section of the cafeteria.