The
Red Hook StarªRevue SOUTH BROOKLYN’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
Thru Feb. 22 2013
FREE
LICH awarded temporary reprieve
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by Nic Cavell
n February 21—in a dynamic pause in the momentum toward the closure of Long Island College Hospital (LICH)—Judge Betsy Barros issued a temporary restraining order to keep LICH open for care at least until March 7, when the case will be reviewed. Until that time, the State of New York Board of Trustees is barred from executing a formal plan to close the hospital and from communicating with the State Department of Health (DOH), which has the final say regarding SUNY’s application for closure.
Sun setting over the Erie Basin. (photo by George Fiala)
The other side of Kilimanjaro
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by Nic Cavell
ing back. With the injunction, they may have landed a first punch. The unions and the workers stand to lose their jobs. The hospital, which serves Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights,
“It’s a victory, and just one of the tools in our cache,” said Nurse’s unions paid for advertising seeking commuJill Furrillo, executive direc- nity support for the hospital. (photo by George Fiala) tor of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), which Red Hook and other neighborhoods in filed the suit along with 1199 SEIU and the area, employs about 2,000. the Concerned Physicians of LICH. Progressive politicians like Council“We are exploring any and all means to man Brad Lander, State Senator Daniel keep this hospital open, which include Squadron and Assemblywoman Joan political and legal avenues.” Millman count on those workers as
“It’s a naked land grab,” said Sloane. Squadron said the plan “essentially turns this $63 million state grant into a
usheragi and camphor trees loomed; the roots of podos and cedars snaked in the Kenyan earth beneath her. Under the cover of two black, plastic contractor bags she set up as a tent—sick from the dull interference of mosquitoes—Frances Medina sat with her hands wrapped around her legs and wept. Monkeys hooted in the dark trees above her “fake little tent” while veins of adrenaline pumped into and gritted her consciousness. If any animals were going to come for her, she was going to be awake for them.
subsidy for a massive real estate deal,”
The 36 hours of enforced solitude into which the Kilimanjaro Initiative (KI) thrust Frances were enough to give shape to painful flickers of fear, insecurity and selfvictimization on the walls of Frances’ consciousness. They were only the precursor to a punishing four-day climb up Mount Kilimanjaro itself. But in the “solo” stage’s nightshade, on the blood-thinning current that took her up the mountain, and in the face of a poverty deeper than any she had ever known, Frances also encountered her own obduracy. She learned that sometimes, instead of (continued on page 3)
The injunction halts a precipitous month of revelations for LICH. On January 17, the state comptroller diagnosed SUNY Downstate Medical Center as hemorrhaging cash—specifically, $117 million in 2011. LICH was listed as the greatest contributing factor to Downstate’s ills, accountable for $44 million of its losses in the same year. Within a week, it was announced that the hospital’s closure would be put to a vote. And despite an eruption of union protests in the same room, SUNY Trustees voted unanimously to flatten LICH’s lifeline. “EUTHANIZED,” the headlines read. “Long Island College Hospital set to close.” But in rallies, including one on Valentine’s Day, LICH employees, union members, local politicians and community members banded to present their own diagnosis: economic mismanagement on the part of Downstate, and a chronic lack of good faith with the communities served by LICH. A counterplot emerged to the board’s vote for euthanasia. Instead of looking for new jobs—as Downstate President Dr. John Williams expected, according to The New York Times—the nurses, doctors, technicians, and ambulance drivers employed by LICH began fight-
constituents. In rallies, they have been at least as vocal in their opposition to the closure of LICH as the unions have been.
Still, after the SUNY Trustees’ decision, only the DOH—which is perceived by the unions as an arm of Governor Andrew Cuomo—has authority to reverse it. Unions and community leaders like Roy Sloane, President of the Cobble Hill Association, are dubious of Cuomo’s intentions. In a January 25 budget proposal, Cuomo included a pilot program giving license to business corporations to own and operate two hospitals in the state, including one in Kings County. That hospital could conceivably be run as a for-profit—and against the mold of hospitals like LICH. And according to Sloane, Squadron, Lander and other members of the community, it would be most likely be financed by the sale of LICH’s real estate. “It’s a naked land grab,” said Sloane. (continued on page 3)
New Cora Dance Season (pages 14 - 15)
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