Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn faces closure -- just two years after the state approved a merger to save the financially ailing 155-year old facility, source told the Post.
SUNY Downstate Medical Center, which acquired LICH in 2011, has sent out word that its eying shutting down the Cobble Hill hospital — the only one that provides emergency room service in Brownstone Brooklyn.
A New York State Nurses Association rep visited the hospital to warn staffers that the hospital could close as soon as March 15.
“It’s disheartening,” said one nurse.
“We’ve seen it sort of get dismantled over the past two years.”
A recommendation to close LICH would have to be approved by SUNY’s Board of Trustees.
Talk of closure comes a week after state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli issued a scathing audit saying that SUNY Downstate was on the verge of insolvency. The report said SUNY Downstate had been mismanaged and called its decision to absorb LICH a colossal mistake — a marriage of two financially failing hospitals.
The state audit estimated that the LICH unit of SUNY Downstate would run a cash deficit of $72.5 million next year
“We’ve been talking all along with the new C.E.O. of SUNY Downstate, and it’s been made clear to us that the hospitals are not making money, they’re hemorrhaging,” said state Assemblywoman Joan Millman (D-Brooklyn)..
She claims that over 1000 people were serviced in the emergency room for flu-like symptoms from December 2012 to early January.
“What would we do if we didn’t have it?” she asked.
Elected officails plan a rally on Friday to save LICH .
“It looks really bad,” said one borough official.
SUNY Downstate is Brooklyn’s fourth largest employer.
LICH’s closure “would be a major health care blow for all of Brownstone Brooklyn,” said Roy Sloane, president of Cobble Hill Association.
A rep for SUNY Downstate-LICH declined comment.
Brooklyn's Long Island College Hospital facing closure
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Brooklyn's Long Island College Hospital facing closure
