On February 8, 2013, SUNY Downstate Medical Center voted unanimously to shut down Long Island College Hospital, triggering a nearly fifteen month battle for a land grab. On Thursday, May 22, 2014 at 7:30 pm, the majority of staff was being cleared out of the once vibrant hospital. After many months in the court of Supreme Court Justice Johnny Lee […]
LICH
Daily News has it backwards, by George Fiala
The NY Daily News is owned by Canadian Mort Zuckerman, a real estate developer with a personal net worth of at least $2.4 billion. Once again he blasts LICH using his editorial page to fabricate truth. In many ways we love the Daily News, as it still maintains many of the traditional roles of a city newspaper, including honest investigative […]
Op Ed: Thanksgiving for LICH: A Personal Story, by Judith A. Francis
This is a story with copious praise for a hospital disparaged by some who believe they know it well but, like myself before last week, do not. This is also a story about the importance of beauty and care on the way to restoring health; about saving the most accessible places in our city for the majority, and not for […]
Op Ed: LICH Ombudsman calls for impeachment, by Dr. Jon Berall
Editor’s note: Jon Berall was appointed as one of two ombudsmen at LICH to oversee SUNY Downstate’s compliance with the Kings County Supreme Court orders issued by Justice Johnny Lee Baynes. Eleven months ago, SUNY Downstate announced that Long Island College Hospital (LICH) would be shut because it was not medically needed and losing vast sums of money. These lies […]
THE STROMBERG REPORT, by Kimberly Gail Price
Another part of the LICH Saga, sidebar to our recent story. In October 2010, Cliff Stromberg was commissioned by Chancellor, Nancy Zimpher to evaluate the Research Foundation of four Health Science Centers in the SUNY system. Cliff Stromberg works for a legal firm in D.C. called Hogan Lovells. His bio on their website says “For several years, he held an […]
Meet “Skip” Williams – hospital hitman, by Kimberly Gail Price
“This community has been lied to,” said Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio. “At the same time [that] SUNY and the Governor promised everything possible was being done to save LICH, they were preparing to sell it off to the highest bidder.” “SUNY is violating a court order to keep this hospital open, and we won’t let it stand,” de Blasio said. […]
De Blasio announces newest and greatest SUNY/LICH court order yet, by George Fiala
A bit after one pm, on the 6th of September, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio stepped up to the makeshift podium across from Long Island College Hospital and greeted his LICH supporters. The group, made up of employees, former patients, local residents and politicians, and a press corps that grows bigger each week, meet across from the hospital on the […]
Carl McCall’s Ivory Tower, by George Fiala
As State Senator, H. Carl McCall led a community protest against the threatened closing of Harlem’s Sydenham Hospital. The 1976 protest was necessary, as he said at the time, because “the community would not allow the policy of ‘municipal shrinkage’ to shrink our community.” Today, McCall, as Chairman of the SUNY Board of Trustees, is leading a nasty battle to shutter […]
A legal and moral responsibility, by Hon. Carolyn Demarest
At an lAS Supreme Coheld in and fCourthouse, New York, 2013. Tenn, Part Comm-1 of the urt of the State of New York, or the County of Kings, at the at Civic Center, Brooklyn, on the 20th day of August, YRE SENT: HON. CAROLYN E. DEMAREST, Justice. ———————————–x 111 the Matter ofthe Application of Index No. 9188/11 THE LONG ISLAND […]
“A Legal and Moral Responsibility” to set LICH right, by George Fiala
August 20 – In a completely unexpected court ruling, the Judge who originally gave Long Island College Hospital to SUNY Downstate, today took it back. State Supreme Court Judge Carolyn DeMarest, appointed by governor Mario Cuomo in 1990, signed an eight page order detailing all the reasons that SUNY Downstate did not live up to their promises when she signed […]