A Tuesday deadline passed without ambulance service returning to Long Island College Hospital, leaving the embattled Cobble Hill institution without emergency service despite a stern court order.
It was unclear at press time if the deadline was postponed by a judge or if the order was simply ignored by the hospital operators at the State University of New York, but a spokesman for the fire department, which runs the ambulance service, said that it had not received any notice to stop sending ambulances elsewhere.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Carolyn Demarest had previously ordered the university to restore ambulance service and other departments by Aug. 26, but she extended that deadline to 2:30 pm on Sept. 3 after hospital staffers said they did not have enough help to reopen their doors.
“[The state is] working in good faith with all the judges to settle all the issues surrounding Long Island College Hospital,” state university spokesman Robert Bellafiore said ahead of the deadline, but he would not divulge whether the state has taken any steps towards reopening the hospital in full.
The state only has control of the hospital while doctors look for another operator, thanks to an earlier, bombshell ruling by Demarest that accused state officials of taking over with the intention of shutting the hospital down and selling off the valuable land it sits on.
Which is exactly how the state says it was planning to pay the money it owes the hospital. Demarest did not say when the state must replenish money borrowed from the hospital’s $140-million endowment but, stripped of a potential $500-million-dollar payday from closing and selling the hospital, state officials may plead poverty when the issue is pressed.
The state first diverted ambulances from the hospital in June, which another judge ruled illegal. The state appealed that ruling and has kept the emergency room closed to all patients except those who walk in for minor treatment.
Hospital staffers fighting the closure have gotten a hand in recent months from public advocate and Democratic mayoral hopeful Bill DeBlasio. Last Friday, DeBlasio filed a “motion to intervene” in the heated case, asking a judge to let community members have a say in who will next run the hospital and calling for a plan to protect medical records and other hospital property from potential exploitation or theft.
