LICH closure causing growing political backlash in Brooklyn
SUNY, Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio facing pressure from residents, minority groups
Bill de Blasio, LICH, Brooklyn. Photo by Mary Frost
A political rift appears to be growing between top officials and their constituents over the closure of Long Island College Hospital (LICH).
Brooklyn residents and local officials have aligned themselves against the State University of New York (SUNY) — and by extension against Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio — following the announcement of the sale of LICH to a developer who has no plans to operate a hospital at the site.
Adding to the pressure, minority groups and officials are expressing deep disappointment with New York State’s bypassing of two higher-ranked minority bidders to go with the third-ranked proposal by Fortis Property Group.
Following SUNY’s announcement on Friday that it had reached an “agreement in principle” to sell the LICH campus in Cobble Hill to Fortis for development into condos, local officials representing the LICH catchment area issued a statement putting them on the opposite side of the fence with the Mayor, who pushed for the deal.
While campaigning on the theme of “hospitals, not condos,” De Blasio has apparently moderated his stance since becoming Mayor, saying that an urgent care center and “stand-alone ER” planned for the site will preserve health care for northwestern Brooklyn. Sources told the Brooklyn Eagle that in February the Mayor’s staff put pressure on the community groups fighting for LICH to support Fortis.
State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblymember Joan Millman, and Councilmembers Brad Lander, Steve Levin, and Carlos Menchaca said in a statement on Monday, “We are distressed that SUNY has yet again ignored the needs of the community. At every step we have called for the best possible healthcare services at the LICH site, and at every step SUNY has refused to heed our calls, costing the state tens of millions and denying Brooklyn the vital healthcare it needs.
“While this agreement includes some healthcare services, it falls far short of a full-service hospital. And it does not resume immediate ambulance service, nor require an independent community needs assessment. We will continue to stand with the community, and urge SUNY and all parties to work collaboratively to meet the needs of the neighborhood and all of Brooklyn.”
Members of the New York State Black, Puerto Rican/ Hispanic and Asian Caucus met on Tuesday to explore their options. Assemblymember Karim Camara (Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens), Caucus chair, told the Brooklyn Eagle late Tuesday, “The Caucus has met with representatives of the Peebles Corporation. Members expressed significant concern about the RFP process and the manner Peebles was dealt with. We will communicate our concerns with the members who could not be there, and from there we will determine how to proceed.”
A letter published in the Brooklyn Eagle earlier today was a working draft inadvertantly made public, and will be updated at a later date. “We will have a better idea over the next day or so on how the Caucus would like to officially address the concerns addressed,” the Assemblyman said.
Another minority-affiliated group, Mobilizing Preachers & Communities (MPAC), representing 250-plus churches in the city and state, wrote to Governor Cuomo on Tuesday today to express “deep concern about how the SUNY Board and its chairman, H. Carl McCall, have managed the sale of Long Island College Hospital.”
“The recent selection of Fortis by the SUNY Board confirms our suspicions that this process was not intended to be fair and even handed from the start,” they wrote.
MPAC says it is especially troubled by “the fact that the SUNY Board has chosen a developer who is not committed to building and maintaining a full service hospital in Brooklyn. This is a devastating development for our community.”
MPAC’s letter to the governor (in full below) was signed by 76 preachers.
The advocacy group Patients for LICH issued a statement on Monday calling on Mayor de Blasio and the Health and Hospitals Corporation “to support our efforts to ensure the return of a full-service hospital to LICH and to help facilitate the New York State licensing process for such a hospital.”
Petitions organized by various Brooklyn groups garnered roughly 56,000 local signatures. (Update on petitions: 18,000 signatures gathered by NYSNA and Patients for LICH; 7,000 by Wyckoff Gardens; 15,000 by Concerned Physicians; 16,000 by Park Slope Co-op; and hundreds more from churches in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill.)
Besides condos, Fortis will lease 80,000 square feet in one building to NYU-Langone and Lutheran Medical Center for an urgent care center, “free-standing ER” and medical offices, and set aside another 10,000 square feet for possible future medical use.
According to New York law, a “free-standing ER” can accept only what is called “basic” ambulance service. Critical care and serious emergencies will require transport to a hospital.
Before SUNY withdrew services, LICH had 90 percent in-patient occupancy and over 50,000 annual emergency room visits, serving roughly a quarter of a million people each year.
SUNY shut down the hospital last month except for a small walk-in ER. Since then, emergency departments across Brooklyn have been overcrowded, and patients have been turned away from the two closest hospitals, New York Methodist and Brooklyn Hospital Center (BHC). Healthcare workers have complained of increasingly stressful working conditions, and patients have described overnight waits on stretchers in hallways.
According to the state Department of Health, BHC’s emergency department usage increased by 1,841 patients during the first four months of this year. NY Methodist told the Eagle that their ER saw an increase of 1,330 during the same time period.
Local resident Sharon Gordon told the Eagle, “My friend took her three-year-old with respiratory problems to Methodist. They wouldn’t see her. She had to take her back on the ambulance and go to Cornell.” She added, “This is the kind of thing that’s happening in the neighborhood.”
___________________________________________________________
Brooklyn Elected Officials’ Statement on Long Island College Hospital
On Monday, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and Councilmembers Brad Lander, Steve Levin, and Carlos Menchaca released the following statement regarding Long Island College Hospital (LICH):
“We are distressed that SUNY has yet again ignored the needs of the community. At every step we have called for the best possible healthcare services at the LICH site, and at every step SUNY has refused to heed our calls, costing the state tens of millions and denying Brooklyn the vital healthcare it needs. While this agreement includes some healthcare services, it falls far short of a full-service hospital. And it does not resume immediate ambulance service, nor require an independent community needs assessment.
“We will continue to stand with the community, and urge SUNY and all parties to work collaboratively to meet the needs of the neighborhood and all of Brooklyn.”
___________________________________________________________
Letter from Mobilizing Preachers & Communities (MPAC) to Governor Andrew Cuomo
June 16, 2014
Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State
New York State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
Dear Governor Cuomo:
Mobilizing Preachers & Communities (MPAC) is writing you today to express our deep concern about how the SUNY Board and its chairman, H. Carl McCall, have managed the sale of Long Island College Hospital (LICH). MPAC is an advocacy and grassroots organization that represents over 250 churches in the New York metropolitan area and across the state of New York.
MPAC is deeply troubled and bitterly disappointed about how the RFP process has been handled in the matter of LICH. The recent selection of Fortis by the SUNY Board confirms our suspicions that this process was not intended to be fair and even handed from the start. Even more disturbing to our member churches and congregants is how two very experienced and seasoned minority companies who finished far ahead of Fortis in the scoring process were disqualified by the board (Brooklyn Health Partners and The Peebles Corporation). How is it that a major development project of this size and caliber that will profoundly affect the health and well being of the largest county in the state of New York, whose population is over 80% minority, does not have a minority developer who has been approved to negotiate with the SUNY Board? As difficult as this is to write to you, we need you to know, Governor, that the appearance of impropriety is now perceived in our community.
In addition, what is also deeply troubling to us is the fact that the SUNY Board has chosen a developer who is not committed to building and maintaining a full service hospital in Brooklyn. This is a devastating development for our community. Universally our congregants and supporters have insisted that no matter what development group is awarded the LICH contract, it must be 100% committed to maintaining and managing a full service health care facility so the continuity of care is protected in our neighborhoods. Fortis does not intend to meet this vital threshold for the project.
We hope that you are either unaware or do not endorse the positions of the SUNY Board as it relates to the selection of Fortis. It is our hope that you will intervene with the Board of Trustees at SUNY in order to prevent the final selection of Fortis. We also ask you today to meet as soon as possible with MPAC pastors and clergy from across the region and the state in order to help develop a plan to resolve this issue.
Your leadership, Governor Cuomo, is needed now more than ever. It is our hope that you will be sensitive to our concerns, particularly with regards to the vital need we have for a full service hospital, minority participation in future development of LICH and job security for those who have now become unemployed as a result of this hospital closing.
We look forward to your favorable response.
Sincerely,
Dr. Rev. Johnnie M. Green
President/CEO of MPAC
MPAC SUPPORTERS:
Patrick Young
First Baptist Church, East Elmhurst, New York
Johnnie Ray Youngblood, Mount Pisgah Baptist, Brooklyn, New York
Carl L. Washington
New Mount Zion Baptist Church, Harlem, New York
Edward Mulraine
Unity Baptist Tabernacle, Mount Vernon, New York
Dequincy Hintz
Shiloh Baptist Church, New Rochelle, New York
Lawrence Aker III – Cornerstone Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Sean P. Gardner
East Ward Missionary Baptist Church, Harlem, New York
Renee F. Washington-Gardner
Memorial Baptist Church, Harlem, New York
Fredrick Crawford
Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Bronx, New York
Lisa D. Jenkins, St Matthews Baptist Church, Harlem, New York
Bishop Mitchell Taylor
Center of Hope International Church, Long Island City, New York
Ben Gibson
Progressive Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Earl Jones
First Calvary Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Chad Foster
Calvary Baptist Church, Buffalo, New York
Rickey Harvey
Mount Olivet Baptist Church, Rochester, New York
Johnnie G. McCann
St Luke Baptist Church, New York
Kris F. Erskine
Bethany Baptist Church, New York, New York
James Hassel – Kingdom Christian Cultural Church, Yonkers, New York
John Gilmore
New Hope Institutional Baptist Church, Tarrytown, New York
Nelson Dukes
Fountain Spring Baptist Church, Bronx, New York
Norman Coleman – Burke Avenue Baptist Church, Bronx, New York
Herman Washington Shiloh Baptist Church, Rockville Centre, New York
Bishop Melvin Reid
Bethany Baptist Church, Queens, New York
Craig Scott Brown – Bethany Baptist Church, Jamaica, New York
Jeffrey Crenshaw
Greater Tabernacle Baptist Church, New York
John Davis
First Baptist Church, New York, New York
Keith Bolden
First Calvary Baptist Church, New York, New York
Kevin Quarles WhosoEver Will Ministries, New York, New York
Pat Morrison
Springfield Baptist Church, Harlem, New York
Isaac Graham – Macedonia Baptist Church, New York, New York
Keith Robertson – Southern Baptist Church, Queens, New York
Sandra Baker
Ossining Baptist Church, Ossining, New York
Alan Paul Weaver Bethesda Baptist Church, New Rochelle, New York
Elgin Taylor
Sweet Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, Albany, New York
Byron Williams
Baptist Temple Church of Newburgh, New York
Grady Zellar – Greater Bright Light Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Marty Parker
Alpha Baptist Church, East Elmhurst, New York
Dr. Donald Butler Community Baptist Church, Hempstead, New York
Bishop Eric D. Garnes – Tabernacle of Praise Cathedral, Brooklyn, New York
Paulette Zimmerman – Mount Zion Baptist Church, Queens, New York
Sheldon Ferguson – Mount Olivet Gospel Church, Corona, New York
Reggie Bachus
Mount Ollie Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Joe Albert Bush
Walker Memorial Baptist Church, Bronx, New York
Sedgwick Easley
Union Baptist Church, Hempstead, New York
Daryl Frazier
Majorty Baptist Church, St Albans, New York
Steve Carter
Mount Ararat Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Craig Gaddy
Friendship Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Evan Gray
Macedonia Baptist Church, Far Rockaway, New York
Walter Hutton
Southern Baptist Church, Elmhurst, New York
Gilbert Pickett
Mount Horeb Baptist Church, Corona, New York
Robert Burkett
New Hope Baptist Church, Queens, New York
Craig Brown
Friendship Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Darrien Ferguson
Mount Carmel Baptist, Far Rockaway, New York
Duane Sleet – First Baptist Church, Far Rockaway, New York
Eddie Norman
Salem United Methodist Church, Harlem, New York
Robert Linden
Bethelite Institutional Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Victor Hall
Calvary Baptist Church, Jamaica, New York
James L. Cherry, Sr
Aenon Missionary Baptist Church, Rochester, New York
Lemuel Mobley
Living Stone Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Calvin Rice, New Jerusalem Baptist Church, Jamaica, New York
Vernon Shelton – Trinity Baptist Church, Amityville, New York
Patricia Rickenbacker Living Hope Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, Massapequa, New York
Keith Roberson
Southern Baptist Church, New York, New York
Kimberly Detheridge
St Marks AME Church, Queens, New York
Marvin Bentley – Antioch Baptist Church, Queens, New York
William Gillison
Mount Olive Baptist Church, Buffalo, New York
Wilbur Ingram
Greater Beginnings Ministries, Queens, New York
Jeffrey Thompson
Amity Baptist Church, Queens, New York
Connis Mobley
United Community Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
J. D. Williams
St Johns Baptist Church, Far Rockaway, New
Rita Story
First Baptist Church, East Elmhurst, New York
Victor Gunter
First Baptist Church, East Elmhurst, New York
Hezekiah Wright – First Baptist Church, East Elmhurst, New York
Willie Daniels
Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, Albany, New York
Karl Delk
New Frontier Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York
Leave a Comment
Related Articles
Brooklyn judge rejects effort to toss out LICH scores
As LICH lawsuits fly, Brooklyn patients must travel farther
Brooklyn judge puts off LICH decision; focus on community needs assessment
Leave a Comment
