COBBLE HILL — The Long Island College Hospital (LICH) is in debt, is diminishing and is in dire need of financial independence, its chief doctors are complaining. They are asking the Attorney General’s Office and the state Health Department to help save them.

LICH is currently controlled by Continuum Health Partners and Beth Israel Hospital of Manhattan. LICH does not want to be controlled by them any longer, said Dr. Frank DiPillo, the hospital’s chairman of medicine and member of the Medical Executive Committee at LICH.

“We want to separate,� DiPillo said. “Financially, we have become in a much worse situation than we ever had before.�

And this is despite a Brooklyn chemical engineer and an old friend of Warren Buffet’s bequest of $140 million to the hospital in his will. Donald Othmer, who died in 1995, left this massive amount of money specifically to LICH.

Shortly thereafter, Continuum bought LICH. And ever since then, it has exploited LICH and diverted financial strength away from the hospital, as well as refused to disclose to LICH the details of how the $140 million bequest was appropriated, according to a press release from the LICH medical staff. “The current administration is having difficulty getting adequate explanations of the finances,� DiPillo said. “Each year we get these multimillion dollar deficits that Continuum says we have.�

As a result, LICH is then forced to sell off its real estate, including numerous buildings on Atlantic Avenue, several brownstones on Henry Street and the former St. Peter’s Church on Hicks Street — and still there is debt, DiPillo says. The doctors are concerned about the possibility of bankruptcy and have little faith that Continuum will save them if such threat occurs. They will just sell off real estate, DiPillo said.

“The marriage of Continuum and LICH has been a failure,� he said. “Our future viability requires a divorce.�

According to DiPillo, when Continuum and LICH joined together, LICH was promised $15 million to promote its primary care. However, LICH never received that $15 million, and its primary care services have dwindled and been undermined; offices and buildings were sold.

To stop this, LICH has had no control, DiPillo said. “Everything is completely controlled by Continuum/Beth Israel.�

DiPillo and his fellow doctors who make up the executive committee have hired an attorney to help them secede from Continuum and gain their independence once again.

“The lawyer was retained to at first investigate the funds … and he was retained to advise the legal committee on separating from Continuum,� DiPillo said.

The lawyer, Jeffrey R. Ruggiero, who represents the medical staff at LICH, sent a letter to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and New York Health Department Director of Legal Affairs Barbara Asheld Monday.

“Continuum’s control of LICH is a detriment to the community it serves, because it has resulted in repeated violations of the New York ‘Minimum Standards’ and Medicare’s Conditions of Participation for hospitals, with respect to its provision of essential services,� Ruggiero wrote.

“What was supposed to be an affiliation of independent hospitals under the administrative direction of Continuum looks more and more like a de facto takeover in violation of the spirit and terms of the affiliation agreement. We are asking the state regulators to take a hard look at how Continuum is dealing with LICH and sever the relationship so LICH can return to providing quality care to its patients.� Spokespeople for Continuum declined to comment.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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