Report: LICH doctors say SUNY ‘won’t open books’ to interested buyers

Two hospital groups 'have expressed interest'

April 11, 2013 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Two hospital groups have “expressed interest” in taking over the threatened Long Island College Hospital (LICH) in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, the New York Post reports.

But their interest has been “stymied by SUNY’s refusal to open their books,” LICH doctors told the Post.

Dr. Toomas Sorra, president of Concerned Physicians of LICH, said that representatives from Hackensack University Medical Center and North Shore-LIJ sat down with LICH doctors for discussions last week. But nothing can move forward “until there’s more information [from SUNY] on the financial front.”

A SUNY Downstate spokesman told the Post thosel figures “are publicly available.”

SUNY’s board of trustees voted on March 19 to close LICH, an affiliate. SUNY said the closure was necessary to save financially troubled SUNY Downstate Medical Center in East Flatbush.

Local residents say closing LICH would leave a section of Brooklyn from Red Hook to Williamsburg without a hospital. Rallies, marches and letter-writing campaigns have been going on non-stop since the news was announced.

LICH supporters say that SUNY Downstate aims to cash in on LICH’s prime Brownstone Brooklyn real estate.

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Johnny Lee Baynes issued a temporary restraining order on April 1 that bars the New York State Department of Health from shutting down LICH pending a May 2 hearing.