SUNY Selects Brooklyn Health Partners To Run Long Island College Hospital
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The State University of New York has made a decision on who will run the financially strapped Long Island College Hospital.
SUNY announced it chose Brooklyn Health Partners on Thursday.
Negotiations to finalize the deal for the facility are expected to begin immediately.
State officials said LICH has been losing an "unsustainable'' $13 million a month, an amount they want to stop subsidizing.
According to officials, Brooklyn Health's proposal includes a new full-service hospital with 300 to 400 beds, to get up and running within three years. In the interim, Brooklyn Health has said it will run a facility with 150 beds.
A state court last month approved an agreement that allowed LICH to remain open and for SUNY to stop operating the hospital at the end of next month.
The agreement ended a controversy that goes back several months as the state struggled to decide the next steps for the Cobble Hill medical center, which now only sees a trickle of patients.
This past summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio — then public advocate — was among those arrested, protesting because they feared SUNY would close the hospital and sell the property.
The New York State Health Department had approved closing LICH back in July. But the following month, the hospital was ordered to restore services to the levels where they stood prior to July 19– the day the New York State Health Department approved closing the facility.
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