Cobble Hill Hospital Prepares to Shut Its Doors

In spite of a court order and in the middle of a terrible heat wave, Long Island College Hospital is sending the last of its patients elsewhere and plans to close over the weekend, according to multiple reports. SUNY issued another closure plan late Wednesday, ordered staff to discharge any remaining patients, and told doctors to expect termination letters, according to The New York Times. Meanwhile, the hospital is near empty but staffed and losing $15,000,000 a month, mostly in salary. SUNY said it is not violating the court’s temporary restraining order because it has filed an appeal and therefore no restraining order is in effect, reported Crain’s. Nurses said emergency response times are slower “because ambulances have been lined up at Methodist Hospital in Park Slope trying to unload patients there,” according to the New York Post. “I spoke to a woman yesterday whose mother waited two days to be seen at Methodist Hospital because they were so backed up,” the paper quoted a paramedic as saying. The closure has bigger ramifications, according to the Times: “The hospital’s grim fate illustrates how health care is changing in New York and in the country, as hospitals confront seismic changes in patient care and how it is financed.” But perhaps more to the point, as the Times also said: “The huge red brick building in Cobble Hill stands on the border of Brooklyn Heights, with sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline that make it more valuable as a real estate development site than as a medical center.”