New #SaveLICH Events Monday and Tuesday

By on July 13, 2013 10:32 pm in Cobble Hill, Events, Government, Health

A reader has forwarded us a message from Michelle Green of the New York State Nurses Association:

This coming week the Downstate Community Council and the SUNY Board of Trustees will be acting on their “sustainability” plan– and we plan to make our presence and opposition known.

On Monday, at noon, the Downstate Community Council will be meeting at 430 Clarkson Avenue, Lecture Hall 1. A large outdoor rally is being organized by 1199 and NYSNA. We encourage you, your neighbors and everyone who wants to keep LICH as a full service hospital to join us. Busses will leave LICH (Hicks Street entrance) at 11AM.

The next day, Tuesday, July 16 the SUNY Board of Trustees will act on the Downstate plan at a special meeting they are holding in Albany. (Notice how the Trustees’ meetings on LICH’s fate move farther and farther away from our communities.) NYSNA and 1199 will be sending a bus from LICH, leaving at 10 AM.

The “Sustainability Plan” contmplates selling LICH to a new operator, possibly one that would close LICH and sell the land for development, or perhaps closing LICH and selling it directly to a developer. If you would like to attend either or both of these events, please send Ms Green an e-mail to be assured of a seat on a bus: michelle.green@nysna.org

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  • maribel

    SUNY DOWNSTATE has received a prize from Albany?
    Yes, over 400mm in payments to be spread over 4 years. This is the cost of SUNY DOWNSTATE SUSTAINABILITY PLAN. Introduced on June 4, 2013 by the SUNY management team lead by Chancellor, Nancy Zimpher. This plan does not guarantee LICH will remain open.
    As reported by DiNapoli, NYS Comptroller the UHB management team did not submit a Business Plan to operate LICH.
    As many know, SUNY did not create business strategies, nor add 1 bed to LICH following its acquisition of the hospital.
    Public Trust has been violated by SUNY. NYS Appellate Court Judge Carolyn Demarest has demanded full accountability of monies on August 5, 2013.
    Join us tomorrow as SUNY Community Council meeting will be held at 12:00pm at 430 Clarkson Ave, Brooklyn, NY Lecture Hall 1
    For further information regarding the changing situation
    at LICH go to:
    http://www.lichmedicalstaff.org

  • HenryLoL

    Looking forward to this dump closing down. What a waste of time and money and energy — and all because of unions wanting to show power. Get over it. SUNY should NOT have to keep this place open. It is a business – not a free clinic run by the city!

  • Remsen Street Dweller
  • Byron

    Maybe HenryLoL if living in Brooklyn Heights should think twice before stating LICH is a DUMP. Both DOH and the Accreditation Organizations have rated LICH a fine hospital. Many people in Northwest Brooklyn, including Court Street lawyers, judges and politicians like a previous Boro President can attest to the proper intensive care medicine at LICH. Maybe if Henry who apparently lives in Brooklyn Heights develops a Heart Attack or Stoke requiring the EMTs to transport him an extra 15-20 minutes to those surrounding hospitals that are always over-burdened due to LICH being put on ambulance divertion. Time wasted for immediate intensive medical care. Judge Johnny Baynes holding a hearing with opposing lawyers on this LICH issue received word of this divertion. He immediatelly question the wisdom of this act. The attorney for Downstate pretended to be ignorant of William’s intended actions that day. Presently patients walking into LICH ER with severe medical problems requiring instant & continuous intensive medical care are being shipped to other hospitals. Those refusing to leave are retained in the ER and not sent to the needed intensive care units within the hospital. There is sufficient numbers of qualified doctors and nurses at LICH to man those units. The State DOH has been checking everyday on staffing levels. If those levlels were not sufficient the DOH would have immediately closed the hospital. Remember Downstate against Judge Baynes order removed the Downstate medical/surgical resident assigned to LICH to treat patients. That is criminal medical negligence – patient abandonment What Downstate has lied to the authorities and the public on this and many other issues. Cuomo is in the middle of this. Downstate won’t open its financial records to any one – potential buyers or the court arrangement between Downstate/LICH oponents under Judge Johnny Baynes, Why is that? Computers paid for by LICH accounts went to Downstate like the Operating Room Robot (Da Vinci). Drugs paid for by LICH was sent to Downstate. What else has Downstate robbed from LICH. Remember Downstate has to financially support its President (John Williams, MD) to the tune of $ 600,000, housing and a car, $ 500.000+ for its Chairman and the $ 300,000+ for the other 13 top administrators. Quite a payroll burden for a failing medical center. LICH pays 2-3 million dollars monthly to Continuum Health Partners (previous owners of LICH) to bill LICH accounts receivable and a computer system not linked to Downstate (abnormal business arrangement). Remember Continuum’ s President is Stanley Brezennoff, a personal Cuomo family friend and benefactor. Mario made him Exc. Dir of the NY-NJ Port Authority back in the 1970’s. He left there quickly under a financial dark cloud. Quite a sweetheart deal for Stanley.. Continuum when owning LICH did a fairly reasonable billing accounts receivable procedure – medical billing requires proper certification as per care given and a proper follow-up with the insurance companies to get a proper reimbursement. Presently Continuum hasn’t done this – losing LICH millions of dollars in reimbursements. Downstate doesn’t care. Like Continuum before them, they want to sell for the potential billion dollars from Real Estate Developers like Andrew Cuomo friends and benefactors. Remember Andrew appoints advisors from only those contributing to his political coffers. This has occurred with all of the Board of Trustees of SUNY and such advisory committees like the Berger Commission appointed to rectify the problems occuring with several Brooklyn Hospitals. They sited false data when comparing LICH and Downstate bed occupancy rates. Theu sed LICH’s DOH cerified bed numbers (506) and not the true operatioal beds (270) that had been arranged between LICH and the DOH years ago. They used Downstate’s operational beds (325) and not the certified beds (708). This allowed them to report LICH was only 49% occupied (not the actual 85-95%) and Downstate as 75% occupied ( not the actual 45%). That jackass State Comptroller Di Napoli used those false figures in his report. Falsehoods to stupid reporting!! The only questionable medical care expert on the Berger Commission was Jeffrey Sachs. He is Andrew Cuomo best friend, the one who housed him for 1 1/2 years during Andrews’ 2003 divorce.Sach represents several hospital in the city. One of them is Brooklyn Hospital. Being close to Richard Becker, MD (Brooklyn’ Pres.), he attempted to block the 2010 merger between LICH and Downstate (NY Times Apr. 22, 2010). That blockage would have forced LICH’s closing. A closed LICH benefits Brooklyn Hospital in both pattient mumbers and financial improvement from its dismal financial state. Richard Becker is a persoal friend of John Williams for more than 30 years. Becker was Williams’ anesthesia resident at George Washington University Medical Center ( Wash. DC) before becoming his anesthesia colleague there. They both climbed through the GWU administrative ranks – Becker becoming president of the GWU Hospital while Williams became Dean of GWU Medical School and then Provost and VP of Medical Affairs. During their leadership the GWU Medical School was placed on probation by the accrediting Agency. Only afterBecker left to become Brooklyn Hospital President in 2008 and Williams’ firing in December 2011 was the probation lifted. How did Williams get hired by SUNY without a search committee action. Did Becker have Sachs speak with Cuomo and H. Carl Mc Call (SUNY Chair), urging them to appoint Williams. This appointment and Williams’ agenda helps Downstate gain one billion dollars from LICH’s sale to build a “new” Downstate Hospital on the grounds of Brooklyn State Psychriatric Hospital. Williams’s has stated this is for “poor and needy people.” What is Kings County Hospital for. That hospital has more potential space than Downstate (3500 beds at one time) for the “poor-medicaid people.” Good insurance patients won’t go into that neighborhood especially at night. Ask the Black community – like the one that were treated at LICH. Becker wins by receiving a very large patient catchment area (northwest Brooklyn). The real estate developers win by building new condos. This includes the Mayor’s real estate development daughter who would make millions on such a project as she did with the development of the Board of Education Headquarters on Livingston Street. Where are all the new addtional condo dwellers going to get immediate proper medical care when LICH is closed? Northwest Brooklyn has had a extremely large population increase in the last few years. That region needs LICH’s ER and its 270-506 beds.The State DOH under Cuomo’s direction has been mute on this issue. They have a moral and legal obligation to see communities get proper medical care. Brooklyn should rise up and tell Andrew that he is not fit to be Governor!!