Brooklyn Hospital Bids to Keep LICH Partially Open, But Won’t Treat Critical Cases

By on January 8, 2014 6:57 pm in Cobble Hill, Development, Health, News, Real Estate

According to Crain’s, Brooklyn Hospital has joined with a private equity investor and a real estate developer to propose taking over Long Island College Hospital and converting much of its campus to “1.000 mixed income apartments.” According to the Crain’s story, the main hospital building

…would be repurposed as a comprehensive care center with ambulance service and a freestanding emergency department open around the clock where non-critical acute illnesses or injuries would be treated. Other proposed services include radiology, laboratory and endoscopy services, outpatient surgery, an infusion center, outpatient physical therapy, and physician offices.

Crain’s says it is not clear how the state or SUNY will respond to this proposal. Brooklyn Hospital is located at 121 DeKalb Avenue in Fort Greene.

Share this Story:

, , , , ,

← 
Newer Comments  →
  • Remsen Street Dweller

    Well, well, well –if this deal were to go through Governor Cuomo’s pal, Jeffrey Sachs, will achieve was he & his cronies was setting out to do from the beginning — close LICH for the benefit of Brooklyn Hospital.

    See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/nyregion/23cuomo.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1

  • MO

    Absolutely! Jeffrey Sachs is a healthcare lobbyist whose client list includes Brooklyn Hospital. He is best buds & adviser to the Governor. He is credited with influencing Cuomo into holding up LICH’s already-approved funding in 2011, trying to force LICH to shut down, for the benefit of his client Brooklyn Hospital. The scandal reported by the NYTimes got the Governor to release the funding. Jeff Sachs & Brooklyn Hospital have been trying for years to kill their biggest competition. LICH is consistently nationally ranked as 1 of the 2 top hospitals in Brooklyn, top 25 in NYC & suburbs, top 30 in the entire NY state year after year (US News & World Report Best US Hospitals). Brooklyn Hosp doesn’t even make the list. Notably their proposal for LICH says that the LICH would be closed & all hospital services will be provided at Brooklyn Hospital. You would be able to go to LICH emergency room, get stabilized & get back in an ambulance to be brought to Brooklyn Hospital. SUNY has been doing that to LICH patients since July. It’s wasn’t acceptable then, it’s not acceptable now. Save LICH.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    And so, the plot sickens….

  • Maik Obermuller

    This is a sound plan that helps the community keep good health care while solving the fiscal problems of LICH.

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    Says you, agent of SUNY extraordinaire.

  • MO

    You’re delusional. Its almost the same thing Fortis proposed. Instead of condos, it calls for apartments. Instead of calling its services a medical mall, it calls it a comprehensive care center. No difference. It was unacceptable when Fortis presented it & it still is. Fortis plan was fought because it would close the hospital. Brooklyn Hospital plan would also close LICH. Any plan that closes the hospital is not acceptable.

  • Maik Obermuller

    Work for LICH eh…. Might change your name to 1199 Union Person? Agent of the union for LICH?

  • Maik Obermuller

    Mo time to get real. One of these deals is going down. Looks like DeBlasio has signed off on it. Now lets see Brooklyn Hospital evil too?

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    I am a resident of Brooklyn Heights that has used the hospital many times over the past 15 years. I am also a member of Patients for LICH and having LICH open as a full service hospital affects my life in a really big way. That is why I have devoted a year of my life to fighting to keep this hospital open despite the chicanery and bluntly illegal operations of SUNY and the cronies behind the state scene that seek to put our lives in danger.

  • Maik Obermuller

    If someone disagrees with you you make up a story or accuse them of being an agent. Not everyone agrees with you. I too live in Brooklyn and think LICH should be shut.

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    If you don’t want to use LICH, then don’t. But don’t put my life and the lives of many other community members from Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn and many other areas in danger. Why is it so important to you that we lose our hospital?

  • Maik Obermuller

    That is a Shrill over statement! You have Brooklyn Hospital to go to. It is false that your life is in danger if they close LICH.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Shill Shill Shill Shill Shill

  • BKnative

    1st of all, we’ve been explaining for a year why Brooklyn Hospital alone is not enough. if you need a reminder, look at DeBlasio’s report & chart from this past summer on that issue. Secondly, Brooklyn Hospital has never been able to corner the market at this end of Atlantic Ave . We choose not to go to Brooklyn Hospital for a variety of reasons. So now they came up with a plan to force us to go there. They think they’re going to highjack us & ship us there like SUNY has been highjacking patients out of lich & shipping them to Flatbush to bolster themselves. Everybody realizes that hospital restructuring is necessary but that can be done without losing the hospital itself. Let’s save the hospital & then talk about how best to restructure services. If we felt that having just an er & urgent care centers were enough, we could have settled this long ago. Losing our critical services, our stroke center, our heart center, our operating rooms, our cancer care, our woman’s and children’s care, etc in this area of Brooklyn is not acceptable. Closing lich as a hospital is still not acceptable.

  • Carlotta

    Closing LICH is frightening. This hospital is a very, very important part of our life in this area. Please keep fighting to keep it open. We are up against big money at LICH and also in the case of the Brooklyn Heights Library.

  • gbkm

    You’ve seen his signature on it then, have you?

  • Maik Obermuller

    LICH safety record. This is a hospital to keep open? I think not Bud. The medical care at LICH is basically below average.

  • Maik Obermuller

    LICH 400 million in red in 2011. Not me but the IRS tax return. $500 million in red today, are we waiting for it to be a billion in Red to close it? I think not.

  • gbkm

    If you Believe that & you’d probably buy the bridge down the street too. The plan does not keep good health care here for the community at all. It closes the hospital. That means it closes the stroke center & neurosurgery service, good luck with your stroke. It closes the only heart angioplasty center in the area, so don’t have a heart attack in Brooklyn Heights. It closes everything else too. All it gives back is an emergency room aka transfer station to transport you to Brooklyn Hospital, an urgent care center, 2 clinics, & some outpatient service. But it gives themselves a lot of rental income new patients aka hostages.

  • Ann B Chapin

    PLEASE don’t take me to Brooklyn Hospital! YIKES!

  • Ann B Chapin

    why didn’t Brooklyn make the top two list of the best hospitals in this area? there is a reason- your life is in danger if you go there!

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    The only reason LICH has lost money is that its past two owners, Continuum and SUNY, have done all they can to sabotage it in order to “unlock” the value of the land it sits on. Continuum encouraged doctors to leave and go to its other hospitals in Manhattan, taking patients with them, then tried to shut down obstetrics and pediatrics, although LICH sits in the middle of an area with many young couples having babies and children needing care. When SUNY took over, it contracted with Continuum to handle billing. When doctors at LICH submitted bills, Continuum would sit on them for months in order to starve LICH of revenue.

  • http://justbeyondthebend.com/ Joe Dudas

    I got the sense that “non-critical acute illnesses or injuries” were not the concern of residents like myself, but, in fact, the *critical* ones were…like heart attacks, etc. No?

    As the old saying goes “time is muscle”

  • BHperson

    This is a gross overstatement. This is by no means a glamorous hospital but they provide care and life saving services to the surrounding community (which I have personally used). It may not look “pretty” but it works. Many of those rating systems you clearly take for gospel are based on back-room cash deals and who’s friends with who on the board of directors. You’re making gross statements of ignorant, non-information with the attempt to fear monger the people that may need LICH the most. You don’t want to go there? GO TO THE CITY for your care.

  • Ann B Chapin

    Pardon me, but please come out behind your pseudo if you wish to address me. I was born at LICH and had experience with Brooklyn Hosp which was not good, as have others to whom I have spoken. That hospital will not save LICH, or provide the care we need in this area. I take offense at your statement that I am “ignorant” or am a “fear monger”. You do not know me. I was a patient at LICH a year ago Nov and received excellent care and I love that hospital. That is why I don’t wish to see it taken over in a half-a–ed way. In fact, I was speaking to friends from Remsen St today about how the husband was saved by the angioplasty unit at LICH and would not have made it to another hospital! Where are you coming from with your statements?? (whoever you are)

  • Jazz

    Methinks you work for SUNY.

  • BHperson

    1.) I occasionally read this blog, I do not troll it for entertainment so I didn’t need a full and proper handle. LOTS of people use pseudonyms on the internet? I actually do live in BH and am a person so it’s not that far off? 2.) I was not calling YOU ignorant just your statement about ratings. I’d say relax in this scenario but that usually makes people more annoyed. 3.) you don’t want to see the hospital taken over in half-assed ways yet you urge people to not go there?

  • Ann B Chapin

    Where did I say “do not go there” about LICH?? Where are you getting that from? I wish to see LICH back to it’s old self or close. The Brooklyn Hospital thing is not a done deal and will not take care of the needs of this community! That is my concern. Your point 3) does not represent what I said.

  • fast_walker

    I live in Brooklyn Heights and I think LICH should be shut down. I do not use their services after two attempts: having a baby there and visisting an emergency room. I wish the hospital restructuring happened much earlier, but at this point, it needs to be dealt with. I also do not understand why a hospital needs to stand on such expensive land. I do need a view while i’m getting my MRI done. It is better for everyone to dispose of this valuable real estate and move services further into downtown Brooklyn where the proceeds could be used more efficiently. It makes sense for this location to be residential.

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    Well, then let’s shut down Mt. Sinai and every other Park Avenue hospital. I have trouble believing what you wrote because your conclusions make no sense what-so-ever.

    As I said, before, if you don’t want to use LICH, then don’t. Go to whatever hospital you chose, but let me and the rest of the 16,000 signers of the petition to keep LICH open as a full service hospital use the hospital that has been standing on these grounds for 155 years.

←  
Newer Comments  →