#SaveLICH Update: Judge Issues TRO Barring SUNY From Immediate LICH Shutdown

By on July 19, 2013 6:48 pm in Cobble Hill, Government, Health, Legal

Bill de Blasio’s trip to court today was successful. Justice Johnny Lee Baynes, who issued the original temporary restraining order barring SUNY Downstate from going ahead with its plan to close Long Island College Hospital, today issued another TRO in response to de Blasio’s petition. The order commands SUNY to appear in court on July 25 (next Thursday) and show cause why an order should not then be issued preliminarily restraining SUNY from taking any action to impede the provision of medical care at LICH. In the meantime, the order provides that SUNY:

…is hereby, effective immediately, restrained from taking an action or issuing any order that would interrupt, hamper, or curtail medical professionals duly employed by or working within LICH from providing medical care, including emergency-medical services, to actual or prospective patients at LICH, other than those based on existing medical standards of care, to (a) divert ambulances, (b) divert patients, (c) prevent or inhibit doctors or other medical professionals from using their best judgment in redering patient care, (d) deprive doctors or other medical professionals of resources in rendering medical care, (e) restrain services or hours of operation, and/or (f) take any action concerning the provision of medical and emergency care of community members other than those required by existing standards of medical care at LICH.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED THAT respondents [SUNY] will post this Order on their web sites and post it in prominent public locations at LICH within 24 hours of service of this Order.

Given SUNY’s history of defying court orders, it remains to be seen how they will respond to this one, if at all.

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  • Remsen Street Dweller

    A beautiful picture, indeed!

  • Peter Pan

    Why aren’t Dr. John Williams and Dr. Nivav Shah spending the night in jail? The NY State legal people never punish their own bad boys.

    I hope the Feds are looking hard at Cuomo’s interest in all of this. If the schmuck does run for President, the Repubs will have a lot of material to use against him. Maybe Cuomo should think about an early retirement in France? (But, oh. He will need some money for that!)

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    Hey, so will Democrats!

  • Rick

    Great news and a welcome photo!

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    Now all we have to do is get SUNY to respect the Court Order!

    Join us on Sunday (7/21) for a press conference and speakout at 1:00 at LICH calling on SUNY to respect the new Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    Booyah, indeed – even Warren Buffett is dismayed about the plundering of LICH’s Endowment Fund.
    See http://www.cnbc.com/id/100900535#_gus

    With thanks to those that first tweeted this article.

  • gbkm

    SUNY is turning this into a circus. Cuomo needs to get off the raft, put down the fishing pole & step in to put a stop to this now. Or take the blame for the whole thing.

  • BrooklynLifer

    The real issue here is SUNY Downstate’s bloated budget which the Governor no longer wants to sustain but doesn’t want to take the political heat to reduce it.

    The solution: make LICH the villain – the failing hospital in Cobble Hill; close it and sell off the real estate to finance Downstate for a couple years (known as kicking the can down the road)

    Ignore the real facts about SUNY Downstate’s University Hospital: losing money for years; the highest paid doctors and administrators among all NYS employees (and US News & World Reports did not even rank it among Brooklyn the top hospitals in Brooklyn – LICH is #2); residency program on probation for “egregious catastrophic event”; an institution so badly managed that it had to hire Pitts Management to stem the hemorrhaging of cash (and close LICH).

    University Hospital (Downstate) is no substitute for LICH, nor is Brooklyn Hospital. Governor Cuomo: we will not forget.

  • e

    To me this story is about the impotence of our elected officials. I like Sen. Squadron personally but he doesn’t ever seem to be able to do more than march and issue press releases (on this, the helicopter problem over BBP, etc.). SUNY is a STATE-RUN entity! Why can’t the State Senate, presumably a powerful body in the STATE, do something to affect the outcome here?

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    We Get the Shaft While They Raft!

    Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg are competing against each other this coming weekend at an Adirondacks rafting race — but the only ones who will lose will be Brooklynites. While they splash around, LICH will be fighting off SUNY to save lives and itself.