The blood lab at Coney Island hospital remains shuttered indefinitely — five months after a patient died there after receiving the wrong type of blood during a transfusion.
The blood type was mis-labeled in the lab.
In the meantime, Coney officials have hired a half dozen extra part-time drivers to shuttle blood samples to and from the Kings County Hospital, where the tests are being conducted, said one insider.
It’s unclear when the state Health Department will allow the Coney lab to re-open.
Amid the crisis, the hospital’s chief operating officer, Mary Mong, has stepped down.
A spokesman for the city Health and Hospitals Corporation, which oversees Coney, denied her departure was related to the closure of the blood lab.
“Mong retired,” said HHC spokesman Ian Michaels.
Asked about the status of the lab, he said, “Coney Island Hospital’s blood type testing is currently taking place at Kings County Hospital.”
The state Health Department, in a statement, said, “To assure patient health and safety, the blood lab at Coney Island Hospital remains closed; blood for patients at the hospital continues to be tested at Kings County Hospital Center.
“DOH continues to work closely with Coney Island Hospital to address deficiencies in its blood lab. “
The hospital — which covers Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, Marine Park and parts of Staten Island — serves more elderly residents than any other public medical facility in the city.
Nearly one in five residents in its south Brooklyn service area — 18 percent — are age 65 and older.
The city’s Community Health surveys show that the hospital catchment area has higher rates of diabetes (14%), obesity (25%), increased cholesterol (39%) and hypertension (34.5%) than the city as a whole.
It’s not the first time the Coney blood lab has been shuttered for botched transfusions. The state closed the lab in 1995 following “serious systemic problems” in handling blood – including a fatal transfusion error involving a paramedic, Ira Medjuck, who was treated following a car crash on the Belt Parkway.
Two other Brooklyn medical facilities, Interfaith and Long Island College hospitals, are fighting to stave off closures.