OPINION: Is SUNY just being ornery?
It looks like SUNY Downstate Medical Center is jumping the gun in its haste to exit Long Island College Hospital (LICH).
Mary Frost’s recent article about the SUNY-LICH situation revealed that a letter addressed to patients and signed by Michael Miller, interim CEO of LICH, said that the hospital will not be accepting ambulances starting Monday, May 12 at 7 a.m. Miller’s letter said the ambulance diversion is “taking place due to the scheduled closure of the hospital on May 22,” and that walk-in patients will receive medical screening and stabilizing treatment until that time.
Excuse me, but I thought that the whole idea of the recent plan for LICH was to avoid precisely such situations – situations like someone suffering from a heart attack having to be taken to an emergency room 20 miles away. I was also under the impression that a new operator for the hospital, namely Brooklyn Health Partners, had tentatively been chosen.