Maybe the hit cable TV series “The Walking Dead” should use Brooklyn’s Interfaith Medical Center for its next season. Not because of the patients, but because of the hospital itself.
The unions and the politicians who dance to their tune are determined not to put the ailing hospital out of its misery, even though it’s losing millions of dollars a month, it filed for bankruptcy more than a year ago and it’s been given permission to close by various federal judges.
In the latest twist, the Cuomo administration stepped in Monday — mere hours before a bankruptcy judge was ready to shut Interfaith down — and promised $8 million in state funds that will keep the hospital alive, at least until the first week in March.
The stay of execution is a win for labor as well as for Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who rode the hospital-closing issue to primary and general election wins.
Alas, it’s bad news for everyone else.
It’s bad for Interfaith, which tried to act responsibly by putting a date certain on its closing — only to have the politicians, bureaucrats and union leaders interfere.
It’s bad for taxpayers, who are now stuck with a supposedly “temporary” bailout of an institution that has shown it can’t operate profitably. In fact, it’s lost some $30 million in the year-plus since it filed for bankruptcy alone.
And from where we sit, ultimately it will also be bad for Gov. Cuomo.
We doubt Andrew Cuomo wants to be tainted as a chief executive happy to live with failure. Especially as he heads into a re-election at a time when he also has an eye on 2016 and the White House.
But that’s exactly what he risks by helping de Blasio keep a zombie hospital alive — and using political clout to intervene in and override decisions that ought to be decided on the merits.
De Blasio’s role here, of course, ought to come as no surprise to anyone.
For the man who wants to keep failing hospitals going is the same politician who has also made clear that he has no intention of closing failing schools.
That may help the unionized workers (in these cases, teachers and hospital workers) who get paid whether or not their institutions are healthy and functioning.
But if he keeps to it, this love affair with failure is not going to do much for the citizens of the city de Blasio will soon serve — or his mayorship.