BHB: Given what has happen at LICH, what might you put forth as a pragmatic solution?
They [Governor Cuomo and SUNY Downstate] are looking at real estate values, they weren’t making this [decision] based on data, it was political conjecture. And we need to stop doing that. To the extent that LICH is a paradigm of what’s going wrong with our health care delivery system, it’s not fixed by continuing to make decisions based upon conjecture.
JS: I think we still need a full service hospital at LICH. The decision that was made had nothing to do with any data at all. One of the things I’ve talked about is a bill that would require the state Department of Health to collect data: how long it takes to get somebody from the 911 call to the E.R.; how long it takes someone to be admitted from the E.R. to a bed, if that’s needed; how long people are waiting pre- and postpartum after they’re admitted. Pulmonary deaths, cardiac deaths by neighborhood so we can assess what the community’s needs are. For a long time [we asked] for a community needs assessment and we were stonewalled on that by the Governor’s office. Part of that is they’re not collecting data. If you look at the Berger Report, which recommends closing LICH, but it also say[s] there’s a need for a full-service hospital in this area.
They [Governor Cuomo and SUNY Downstate] are looking at real estate values, they weren’t making this [decision] based on data, it was political conjecture. And we need to stop doing that. To the extent that LICH is a paradigm of what’s going wrong with our health care delivery system, it’s not fixed by continuing to make decisions based upon conjecture. It needs to be assessed, and we need to collect data so that the state can better allocate it’s resources to the right kinds of programs, the right kinds of services in the areas that need them.
BHB: Was there more that you felt might have been done to save LICH?
JS: The community was very much behind the eight-ball on this. Everybody was…. Continuum, which was frankly bleeding LICH dry for a number of years, so if there’s blame to be laid—big blame—it’s all on Continuum. We were all at that meeting with Stanley Brezenoff, complaining to [him] about [closing] the maternity and pediatrics departments. Because that’s a death-knell, especially in an area with growing families.
That fix, that marriage with SUNY Downstate clearly turned out not to be made in heaven. But LICH was losing to Continuum, and the Othmer money has been subsumed somewhere and nobody really knows what’s happened to that money. There [were] a lot of difficulties as SUNY was in financial distress. It seems clear that they weren’t collecting on the bills, Continuum wasn’t collecting their bills. In a lot of ways the die was cast and everybody was behind the eight-ball. The doctors had a model that didn’t fly when Continuum was trying to close the hospital, but in fact the doctors’ model may very well have worked.
There’s an element of “toothpaste out of the tube” here, that we can’t fix certain things, but I think we have to learn from this experience. I don’t know that the community could have done any more than it did. We were there, we called attention to this, we brought people together who normally have disparate needs and communities that sometimes don’t get along, got together and [stood] shoulder-to-shoulder on this.
I think it was a very effective effort. It wasn’t perfect. It became a sort of “cause célèbre.” The state threw tons of money at this for no reason. They had [so much] security, you’d think it was Fort Knox. There was absolutely no reason for the expenses they were incurring. So I don’t know what the community could have done differently. It very much was in the hands in the Governor, and the Governor wanted [the sale] to be done.
BHB: You’ve just spoken about the importance of the community in the LICH fight. Please talk about the role of Community Advisory Committees in the fights for Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Brooklyn Heights Library Branch.
JS: There’s not a CAC around that isn’t at odds with the [organization it advises]. Every project where there’s community opposition, the developer or the organization says “We’ll start a Community Advisory Committee.” All the time!
We did one at Bergen Street. They were putting in supporting housing, it was at Lutheran Services here, [between] 3rd and 4th, at a time when Bergen Street between 3rd and 4th had nothing but drug dealing and the taxi-fixing lot. They came in and they were starting supported housing that would serve a number of mentally ill, chemically addicted people. There was a lot of concern about that because these areas had had a lot of drug trafficking. The Eighties… crack was not a good thing.
We did create a community advisory board, and it worked very well. And [ Lutheran Services] was an organization that wanted to work with the community, to make it a better facility and address community concerns. They did that. And it worked. [But] that doesn’t always work. It also worked very well when they re-did the Nevins Hotel, made it the Muhlenberg, and at Bishop Mugavero, which is now the Hopkins Center. That was Holy Family Hospital, which was knocked down. They were going to put up an 11-story tower, but the community said “No!” They changed the design several times to make it blend in with the neighborhood better, deal with the footprint issues, provide the size facility needed but in a way that integrated better with the community. It was a very effective process. They’re not always like that.
The other thing you get with CACs is a great variety of positions within the CAC. And that sometimes can be very difficult to move forward in those ways.
