SUNY Downstate President Decries Recommended Closure of University Hospital

April 11, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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Crain’s New York quotes Dr. John LaRosa, president of SUNY Downstate Medical Center, as disagreeing with the state Medicaid Redesign Team’s Brooklyn Work Group about the fate of University Hospital on Downstate’s East Flatbush campus. The work group, said Crain’s, recommended that both inpatient and outpatient services be shifted to Downstate’s Long Island College Hospital, implying that University Hospital should close. University Hospital, LaRosa is quoted as saying, “is an old place. We have no ability to go to capital markets. But it serves a very loyal population.” It has 70,000 emergency department visits annually, “almost as many as Kings County across the street.”