South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 30

urn Sun-Sentinel, Thursday, August 4, 1988 7B HOSPITAL FEES Postal Service picks site in Pines for mail center Average patient charge by hospital and category from Jan. 1 to June 30, 1987: Heart failure ft shock Simple pneumonia Broward hospital costs rise County tops state in every category Stroke AMI North Ridge $7,143 $6,737 $9,479 Broward General 7,459 9,040 10,367 Coral Springs Medical 15.005 8,253 11,917 Doctors', Hollywood 9,535 8,323 9,229 Doctors' General, Plantation 6,882 9.526 7,693 Florida Medical Center 7.715 11,788 8.818 HCA Northwest Regional 9.728 18,301 15.750 HCA University 8.105 10,295 11,154 Hollywood Medical Center 9,276 11.738 11,552 Holy Cross 6,143 6.035 7,071 Humana. Bennett 8,176 8,567 8,974 Humana. Cypress 8,218 9,696 8,992 Humana, South Broward 7,070 8,718 9,598 Imperial Point 5,740 8,652 12,284 Las Olas Community 4,807 9,026 5,622 Memorial. Hollywood 8,227 12,088 11,072 North Beach 10,837 9,543 7,589 North Broward 7.161 8,547 8,495 Pembroke Pines 9,271 10,506 10,849 Plantation General 8,878 10,922 10,006 Broward average 7,963 9,799 9,805 Statewide average 6,504 7.464 8.133 SOURCE: Florida Hospital Cost Containment Board Mayor Charles Flanagan said.

"I'm glad we can put this to rest." Flanagan said he received a letter on Wednesday from postal officials in Memphis. The letter said the Postal Service found the proposed site to be the best among seven possible Broward locations. The postal service has not publicly announced the selection because negotiations to buy the land are not complete, said Bryan F. Pease, of the Realty Acquisitions branch for the Postal Service's district headquarters in Memphis. "We're getting down to the last few words of the contract," Pease said.

"We expect to reach an agreement within the next few days, but it won't be officially announced until we have a signed contract." However, since the site is in an area that is prone to flooding, the Postal Service is required to publish a legal notice that states the center will have little impact on the environment. The legal notice is expected to appear in the Sun-Sentinel next week, Pease said. The Postal Service intends to coordinate the design of the complex with city and county agencies so that traffic congestion will be minimal, postal officials said. City Planner Mike Scott said the site is zoned for either commercial or agricultural use and is slated for single-family homes on the city's long-range land-use plan. By MICHAEL SAUNDERS Staff Writer PEMBROKE PINES The U.S.

Postal Service has selected a site near Interstate 75 for a mail processing center that is expected to employ as many as 1,000 people. The center will handle mail for much of western and southwestern Broward and northwestern Dade counties when completed in 1990 or 1991, postal service officials said on Wednesday. The center will handle mail from ZIP codes beginning with 330, relieving pressure at the county's main post office on Oakland Park Boulevard west of Interstate 95 in Oakland Park. That post office now processes mail from ZIP codes starting with 330 and 333. Post offices in Broward County employ 2,599 people, spokeswoman Lydia Mazzarese said.

Some will be transferred to the new center. The 27-acre site is at the southeast corner of Pines Boulevard and Southwest 160th Avenue, about a mile west of 1-75. The land is owned by the William Lyon Co. The mail center, which will be the largest in Broward County, also will provide full-service customer windows for all services performed by any post office. "We need a post office badly," Pembroke Pines Boy faces animal cruelty charge Deputy says he saw teen repeatedly hit dog with rolled towel trict spokesman Nathan Goren.

Other administrators said costs aren't the best measure. "I prefer to choose a hospital based more on quality rather than on cost," said Nancy Weinstein, associate executive director of Pembroke Pines General Hospital. "Cost is one of the things to consider but you also have to look at the Ehysician and the quality of the ospital's personnel." The brochure should not be used as the primary way of selecting hospitals, Cowart warned. "This guide is intended to provide consumers with the information they need to evaluate just one of those factors the cost of health care," she said. The brochures will be available from state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services offices throughout the state, physicians, consumer groups and by calling tients as well as geographic location," Cowart said.

"For example, South Florida, with its higher cost of living, higher medical malpractice premiums and other factors tends to provide the costliest health care in our state." The most expensive single category both in Broward and statewide was for treatment of pneumonia in patients over 70. The statewide average was $8,133 and in Broward it was $9,805. The lowest average cost was for normal childbirth: $518 statewide and $540 in Broward. Health officials, including some whose hospitals fared well in the survey, said the statistics were somewhat misleading. In the case of public hospitals, for example, the higher number of more seriously ill indigent patients would tend to push up averages, said North Broward Hospital Dis every time it was hit." The dog, named Ruff and described as a German shepherd mix about a year old, was taken into protective custody, Gordon said.

He said the suspect is a friend of the dog's owner. Neither of their names was released. The teen-ager was released to the custody of his parents, Gordon said. Animal cruelty is a first-degree misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine, Schlueter said. was being jabbed repeatedly with something that resembled a mop handle, said Sgt.

Sherry Schlueter of the Agricultural Crimes and Animal Abuse Unit. The witnesses said the jabbing had been going on for about 15 minutes in back of a home in the 3000 block of Northwest 43rd Terrace, Schlueter said. Deputy Mike Vadnal, watching from a nearby home, saw the dog struck in the head with a rolled towel, Schlueter said. "He was not playing. The dog was being hit," Schlueter said.

"The deputy said the dog would cry out By PATTI ROTH Staff Writer LAUDERDALE LAKES A teen-ager is facing an animal cruelty charge after a Broward Sheriff's Office deputy saw him strike a dog repeatedly with a rolled towel, a spokesman said on Wednesday. The 16-year-old suspect, who lives in Lauderhill, told an investigator that a friend wanted him to beat the dog to make the animal mean, Sheriff's Office spokesman Al Gordon said. Witnesses called authorities on Tuesday to report that the animal FLORIDA Broward Mall FINAL CLEARANCE By KEVIN ALLEN Staff Writer Costs rose for nine of the 10 most common stays in Broward hospitals last year, keeping the county well above statewide averages in every category reported by state health officials on Wednesday. Statewide, average charges for hospital stays such as childbirth, heart ailments, stroke, back pain and mental illnesses rose anywhere from 8.6 percent to 16.9 percent, according to a consumer guide issued annually by the Florida Hospital Cost Containment Board. "It's not where I would like to see health care costs," said Dr.

Marie Cowart, vice chairman of the board, which has published 150,000 copies of The Patient's Guide 6. The guide compares the costs for the 10 most frequent ailments treated in Florida hospitals in the first six months of 1987 to the same period the previous year. Average charges for those 10 ailments, not including doctor fees, were computed from the data the approximately 250 acute-care hospitals in Florida are required to report to the board. Averages in Broward hospitals increased in every category except psychoses, according to board spokesman Janet Dennis. The average cost of treatment of psychoses dropped 4.5 percent.

The biggest jump, 19.6 percent, was in the cost of treatment of stroke. The smallest increase was the average cost for non-surgical back problems, up 6.3 percent "Average charges are influenced by many factors, among them technological changes, local influences such as competition for pa- Judge OK as bailiffs foil attack Man served sentence for previous threats By KURT GREENBAUM Staff Writer A man armed with a 10-inch carving knife lunged at a judge in the Palm Beach County Courthouse on Wednesday, two days after the man finished a prison sentence for writing death threats to the judge, courthouse officials said. Circuit Judge Harold Cohen was shaken but uninjured after the 1:30 E.m. attack, which ended when four ailiffs tackled Thomas Epps, 24, and pinned him to the floor of the courthouse hallway. Police said Epps had boasted at a Lake Worth bar on Tuesday night that he intended to kill Cohen.

But the judge's bailiff was not told that Epps had made such a threat. "It could have been real bad," said acting chief bailiff Warren Marschat, who said Epps was only 3 feet from Cohen when Epps pulled the meat-carving knife out of his trousers. When Marschat saw the man hold the knife over his head, he and three other bailiffs tackled and disarmed him in the third-floor hallway outside Cohen's courtroom. The judge, an outspoken critic of pourthouse security, declined to comment after the attack. Epps was in custody on Wednesday night at the Palm Beach County Jail, charged with attempted first-degree murder and carrying a concealed weapon.

His bond was set at $15,000 pending a court hearing today. Epps, of Lantana, was released on Monday from the River Junction Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, where he was serving a 2'j-year sentence for writing death threats to Cohen. Cohen, notified of Epps' release, wrote a memo asking Sheriff Richard Wille and Chief Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley to assign a bailiff full-time to his side. Epps pleaded guilty in November 1987 to threatening Cohen.

According to court documents, Epps wrote several letters demanding that Cohen drop another felony charge pending against him, even though Cohen was not handling that case. Epps went to the hallway outside Cohen's office after lunch. Sheriff's spokesman Robert Ferrell said officials became suspicious and called a deputy clerk who could identify Epps. At the same time, Epps' former attorney, Donna Le-vine, was in the clerk's office and overheard the discussion about Epps, Ferrell said. Levine headed to Cohen's office to help.

At about the same time the bailiffs confronted Epps, Cohen emerged from his office. When Levine said hello to Cohen, Epps pulled the knife from his pants and raised it over his head, Marschat said. SAVE 40 TO 60 Save on selected groups of merchandise in every department. I I 0- I Ai -3, ft- t-mt ip Sportshirts. 40 OFF Knit 40 OFF Casual Slacks.

.40 OFF 40 OFF ShirtsBlouses 50 OFF Separates 60 OFF Suits 40 OFF Sportcoats .40 OFF Dress Slacks. ..40 OFF Assorted famous maker and designer neckwear NOW $5.99 Originally $17.50 and more! Dress 50 OFF Hosiery, Robes 50 OFF 50 OFF (Pajamas available at selected locations.) Savings are off original prices and do not include new fall merchandise. Intermediate markdowns may have been taken. There is a nominal charge for alterations. Broward Mall Featuring Hart Schaffner Marx Clothes" ljjr Company.