SUNY HEARING: Did real estate riches doom LICH? Was there ‘criminal action’?
Councilman Brad Lander clashed Thursday with SUNY Chairman Carl McCall, questioning whether SUNY’s acquisition of Long Island College Hospital was a transaction driven by real estate rather than medical considerations.
Then state Sen. Eric Adams, a leading candidate to succeed Marty Markowitz as borough president, raised the stakes, suggesting there be a probe of possible “criminal action” in the removal from LICH coffers of millions of dollars bequeathed to the hospital by a local benefactor.
Adams and Lander spoke at a public hearing of the SUNY board in Midtown Manhattan. After the hearing, the board was expected to act on a recommendation that it close LICH.
When SUNY Downstate took over an ailing LICH from Continuum Health Partners, it was aware of LICH’s ongoing financial problems, Lander said. “This raises serious questions about the acquisition itself.”