New Hospital

It was a match between the white T-shirts and the black ribbons.Hundreds of supporters and opponents of a new Harford County hospital packed the auditorium at Bel Air High School on Thursday night, carrying placards and wearing their colors.Those favoring Upper Chesapeake Health System's proposal to build a new facility wore white. Others donned black to oppose what they called the "death of Harford Memorial."They came from as far away as Baltimore and Rising Sun in Cecil County.4 Hissing, booing and cheering marked the evening.

The Upper Chesapeake Health System is looking for a site to build a new hospital in the Bel Air area, as a major step toward improving its facilities and services in Harford County.The private, non-profit organization, which operates Harford Memorial and Fallston General hospitals, has been striving mightily to remake itself during the past year. A new chief executive was named, the supervisory boards were reorganized, a Chicago consultant developed a long-range strategic plan and $1 million was pledged to upgrade the facilities and patient care systems.

The directors of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland yesterday named William L. Jews, a hospital executive, to chart a new path for the embattled health insurer.The selection of Mr. Jews, the 41-year-old president of Dimensions Health Corp., a hospital and nursing home company in Landover, as chief executive officer and president marks a new chapter in the company's history. Twenty years ago, the company dominated the health insurance market, but it now faces pressures from competitors and demands for better, cheaper service from subscribers and lawmakers.

Your next household move should go this smoothly.With the help of close to 200 military and civilian volunteers, the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center transferred 49 patients without a hitch yesterday from the old VA hospital at 3900 Loch Raven Boulevard to a ritzy new home downtown.The patients, some too sick to walk, took the 20-minute ride in a fleet of ambulances and specially equipped buses, which were provided for the day by Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Military police in desert-camouflaged Humvees rode escort for the convoys.

Minutes after the March 22 crash of USAir Flight 405 at New York's LaGuardia Airport, Dr. James A. Block had torn his way out of the sinking airliner and waded the icy waters of Flushing Bay to safety.Dr. Block -- then president of University Hospitals in Cleveland and soon to become president of Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System -- found himself in an ambulance beside another, more seriously injured crash victim, racing to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.Unaware of his own injuries, he pitched in to help treat the other man, at one point helping to resuscitate him when he stopped breathing.

Construction of the $121 million building that will house the Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center is expected to be completed within the next week or two. That means the new hospital in downtown Baltimore should open on schedule Nov. 8, in time to mark Veterans Day with more spacious surroundings and state-of-the-art technology.VA engineers will spend the next five months outfitting the seven-story granite building with the equipment needed to make it a functioning hospital.The hospital on Greene Street, next to the University of Maryland Medical Center, replaces the 40-year-old VA Hospital at Loch Raven Boulevard and the Alameda.

Construction of the $121 million building that will house the Veterans Affairs Medical Center is expected to be completed within the next week or two. That means the new hospital in downtown Baltimore should open on schedule Nov. 8, in time to mark Veterans Day with more-spacious surroundings and state-of-the-art technology.VA engineers will spend the next five months outfitting the seven-story granite building with the equipment needed to make it a functioning hospital.The hospital on Greene Street, next to the University of Maryland Medical Center, replaces the 40-year-old VA Hospital at Loch Raven Boulevard and the Alameda.

NEW YORK -- A storm sweeping the East Coast yesterday prompted Dr. James A. Block, the next president of Johns Hopkins Hospital, to abandon a planned house-hunting expedition in Baltimore and instead head home to Cleveland from a meeting in New York.His flight lasted only a few seconds. "I was reading a book and the plane tried to take off but obviously it couldn't," Dr. Block said as he rested in a bed at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens early today."It dipped, then tried again, then we hit something."

Calvin M. Pierson starts his new job as president of the Maryland Hospital Association upbeat and optimistic.He's concerned about the state's $450 million budget deficit and a resulting $34.4 million in state Medicaid cuts to state hospitals. But Mr. Pierson has dealt with similar problems before. He encountered pretty much the same scenario in Rhode Island, where he headed that state's hospital association before coming to Maryland a few weeks ago."Rhode Island actually went into the recession before the state of Maryland," Mr. Pierson said this week.

The newest hospital for veterans on the East Coast is going up rapidly and ahead of schedule in downtown Baltimore across the street from the University of Maryland Medical Center.The nine-story, 324-bed Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center is halfway finished and moving toward an April 1992 completion date. It will cost more than $100 million by the time it admits its first patients about six months after it is completed, officials said."We're very excited about moving into our new medical center on Sept.