Update: According to NY1 SUNY has indicated ambulance and ER service were suspended because of “a shortage of medical specialists” and that services are expected to resume tomorrow.
One day after one of LICH’s main supporters, Bill de Blasio was elected mayor of New York, the hospital has stopped taking admissions. The mayor-elect is en route to Puerto Rico.
We’ve received this dispatch from Cobble Hill Association member Jeff Strabone:
SUNY has shut down ambulances and admissions at LICH in violation of court orders by Justice Baynes of Brooklyn state court.
After getting a tip that ambulances were being diverted from LICH again, I walked into the ER and asked if I could be admitted. The intake person said I could be ‘seen’ but I would not be admitted. I asked how long this has been the case. She said: ‘The decision was made a few hours ago.’
Meanwhile, there are ambulances outside. I asked the EMT people why they were there. They said they were there to move patients to other hospitals.
I smell jail. #savelich @NYGovCuomo
— Cobble Hill Assoc (@CobbleHillAssoc) November 7, 2013
@NYGovCuomo "Judge Baynes already scheduled a contempt hearing for November 18 against SUNY…" #saveLICH — Alan http://t.co/QjmlbbdaXM
— js (@oceanblueskies) November 7, 2013
Employees at the hospital say they were informed by a telephone call from Dr. Michael Lucchesi, Chief Medical Officer at SUNY Downstate and LICH, around 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
Jacqueline Smalling, assistant head nurse in the ER, told the Brooklyn Eagle that Dr. Jones, director of the ER, informed her that Dr. Lucchesi was in the process of obtaining a “complete diversion” of ambulances from FDNY.
Nurses said they received a confirmation Wednesday night from EMS personnel that a full diversion was in effect.
Maribel Agosto, medical surgical nurse at LICH, told the Eagle that LICH had been bustling with patients all day Wednesday.
“We had a full ICU, and on the medical/ surgical floor we started the day with 15 and ended it at 11.”
