State University of New York chairman Carl McCall said taxpayers can’t afford to prop up Brooklyn’s financially ailing Long Island College Hospital any longer — despite protests from Democratic mayoral nominee Bill deBlasio to keep it open.
And McCall told The Post he has the backing of Gov. Cuomo for SUNY to pull the plug if another buyer doesn’t step forward.
He said LICH is losing at least $40 million a year — a money pit that’s jeopardizing the finances of SUNY’s Downstate Medical College, which provides one-third of Brooklyn doctors and one in nine doctors in the entire city.
“It’s draining money from our Downstate Medical Center and the rest of SUNY,” McCall warned.
SUNY, which runs both LICH and Downstate, is keeping hundreds of staffers on the payroll to care for a dwindling number of patients and the imperiled hospital, McCall said.
McCall, the former state comptroller, said the millions of dollars in red-ink also is unfair to the 64,000 SUNY students at 64 campus.
More money plowed into LICH means less resources for students.
“That’s why the place has got to close. We simply can’t afford it,” McCall declared.
“The governor has been supportive. He has not been committing money to financially failing facilities,” McCall said.
DeBlasio — the public advocate who lives near LICH and whose mayoral campaign is backed by the powerful hospital workers union SEIU Local
1199 — recently got arrested during a raucous rally to save the hospital.
“This is about protecting healthcare and making sure we don’t leave tens of thousands of Brooklynites without an E.R. and basic services,” de Blasio said. “We believe L.I.C.H has a future with a new healthcare provider, and we’re fighting to keep its doors open until that day comes. Putting a Brooklyn Health Authority in place will spur that transformation and protect vital healthcare throughout the process.”
And he filed a successful lawsuit that temporarily kept the hospital open.
“We have to end this epidemic of hospital closures,” de Blasio said earlier this month.
McCall said de Blasio has rightfully “been responsive to people in the community” who oppose the shutdown.
But he added, “When you get elected to office and face the responsibility of governing, you may see it in a different way.”
De Blasio wants SUNY to turn over LICH to a new operator that will convert it into a more cost-effective health care facility, a source said. SUNY has received expressions of interest from seven operators.
The source stressed it’s not de Blasio’s intention to force SUNY to continue absorbing millions of dollars in losses there.
The plight of LICH is similar to that of the former St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Greenwich Village. Many residents in the surrounding communities went elsewhere for surgeries, and St. Vincent’s — once New York’s largest Catholic hospital — filed for bankruptcy and eventually closed.
But like at St. Vincent’s, neighbors want to keep LICH open for emergency care.
In one of his last acts in office in 2010, then-Gov. David Paterson — under pressure from Brooklyn political leaders and the health care unions — put up $40 million to allow SUNY to acquire LICH from the Continuum Health Partners. It was a decision that SUNY officials have come to regret.