Officials announce LICH bill to give community a voice in hospital closures
Squadron: To ensure 'there’s never another situation' like LICH
What happened to Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital (LICH) should never happen to another hospital, a group of city officials said at a press conference outside the shuttered complex in Cobble Hill on Tuesday morning.
In response to the community’s unsuccessful efforts to keep LICH open, State Sen. Daniel Squadron and Assemblymember-elect Jo Anne Simon are sponsoring a bill that would give residents and local officials a say and require a community needs assessment before a hospital is closed. The measure was built around an earlier proposal by city Comptroller Scott Stringer.
“This bill would ensure that there’s never another situation like we have experienced at LICH,” Sen. Squadron told a crowd gathered on Henry Street. “Today, there is no confidence for communities that medical needs are taken care of when a hospital closure is threatened.”
Squadron said the outcome at LICH was “one of the ugliest and most destructive fights that I have seen in my time in public service. It was a fight where there were no winners.