Three members of Congress joined medical staff of a cash-strapped Downtown Brooklyn hospital last week saying they want to sever the relationship between the hospital and the institution’s management consortium.
But the management consortium, Continuum Health Partners, maintains they have no plans to let go of the facility, and in fact, have expanded some services.
The institution, Long Island College Hospital (LICH), is located at 339 Hicks Street. It has been operating as a community institution for the past 150 years.
Continuum affiliates include Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center, and Beth Israel Medical Center on Kings Highway in Brooklyn.
“Unfortunately, for the last several years our Brooklyn hospital has suffered financially, being inured with debt and grossly mismanaged by a Manhattan-based organization whose members know little about the needs of Brooklyn and its hospital,” said Dr. Arnold Licht, president of the LICH medical staff.
Licht said the hospital has no local board, and that essential community-based clinics have been closed and real estate sold off without input from or an explanation to the medical staff and community.
“Our losses have grown yearly under the management of Continuum Health Partners who have run LICH as if we were owned by them,” said Licht.
“We want LICH to be again a growing and vibrant institution, not an afterthought and appendage of some Manhattan-based corporate scheme,” he added.
Licht said the hospital has 506 beds, but is currently running about 350 beds.
The reason not all the beds are in use is because Continuum has shut down the OB-GYN facility at the hospital along with several surgical service units, he said.
Supporting the medical staff were Brooklyn Reps. Nydia Velazquez, Ed Towns and Yvette Clarke, who wrote to Gov. Paterson, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the State Department of Health expressing their concerns with Continuum.
The congress members and medical staff point out that Continuum has closed LICH’s five satellite clinics including Grand Army Plaza, Total Health in Greenpoint, Flatbush on 5th Avenue, Graham Avenue in Williamsburg and the Smith Street Medical Group.
“”In recent years vital community clinics have closed, services have been cut and there are continued reports of mismanagement,” said Velazquez.
“Far too often local working families have had the hardest time finding care and closing down another hospital in the heart of Brooklyn would only compound the problem. The management of LICH need to put back [the hospital] into the hands of the community,” she added.
Continuum spokesperson Jim Mandler confirmed that the company has sold three properties belonging to LICH in the past year, for a total of $33.4 million.
This includes The Lamm Institute, at 110 Amity Street, for $6.1 million; the former International Longshoremen’s Association Medical Center at 340 Court Street, which had been used as a nurses’ residence, for $24 million; and a building at 145 Sackett Street for $3.1 million.
Over the last few years, the company has also sold other properties belonging to the hospital for what the doctors said was $16 million.
This includes St. Peter’s Church and School on Hicks Street, which had been used as a nursing and radiology school, and about a dozen brownstones on Atlantic Avenue and Henry Street.
But Mandler said Continuum has no plans to close the hospital.
“We reject the accusations that are being made through the media by a small group of LICH-affiliated physicians. These doctors do not represent the great majority of the medical staff or the thousands of other dedicated employees of the hospital,” said Mandler.
Mandler said like many New York City hospitals, LICH has struggled with financial difficulties for decades, well before the hospital joined the Continuum partnership.
“The hospital leadership has focused on ensuring LICH’s future as a vibrant community hospital. Over the past several years, we have made investments in capital improvement, such as the expansion of the emergency department and renovation of several patient units, coupled with thoughtful expense management,” said Mandler.
“We will continue that course. And we will continue to work collaboratively with all LICH physicians and others with an interest in the hospital’s prosperity to secure a positive future.”
