Cobble Hill

SUNY given more time to reopen LICH ER

August 28, 2013 By Charisma L. Miller, Esq. Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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A Brooklyn judge has extended the deadline for State University of New York-Downstate to return and fully staff Long Island College Hospital’s emergency department and intensive care unit.

The attorney for SUNY Downstate, Frank Carone, requested an extension of Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Carolyn Demarest’s Aug. 20 and Aug. 23 orders mandating that SUNY Downstate return all LICH assets, transferred to SUNY Downstate starting in 2011, back to LICH and restore LICH’s function as an active emergency department.

Demarest previously ordered SUNY Downstate to “immediately re-open the Intensive Care Unit, restore full operation of the Emergency Department and restore ambulance service to LICH” no later than Aug. 26 at 3 p.m. Attorneys for SUNY-Downstate noted that the reinstatement demanded by the order was not a “realistic possibility.”

SUNY Downstate asserted that it is “actively seeking to hire additional physicians necessary to staff the Emergency Department at LICH so as to reinstitute ambulance service,” Demarest noted in her recent extension order.

Demarest extended the deadline to Sept. 3 at 2:30 p.m., so long as — on SUNY’s express representation that “good faith efforts will be made in the interim” to abide by the Aug. 26 order — LICH “remain[s] open and current services are maintained.”

Further, given SUNY’s past declaration of its intent to eventually close LICH, Demarest reminded all parties that due to the Aug. 20 order mandating the return of LICH property, “no effort shall be made to dissolve LICH pending further order of this court.” (More on this here.)

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