State Reps Prepare Bills in Case of LICH Closing

Brooklyn state representatives have drawn up several bills that could funnel money from the sale of Long Island College Hospital into other local medical avenues, the Brooklyn Eagle reported Tuesday.

In the case that SUNY Downstate succeeds in closing LICH despite protests from residents and a court order, representatives hope to help finance SUNY Downstate, health care for lower income Brooklynites and a downsized health care facility at LICH.

State Senators Eric Adams and Kevin Parker have proposed a Brooklyn health trust that would “provide ambulatory health care to low and moderate income residents, the elderly frail and disabled persons of the County of Kings” and “assume the non-educational components of SUNY Downstate Medical Hospital.”

The bill also calls for a million-dollar Brooklyn Health Commission to study the health needs of Brooklyn residents.

“This bill is…a wake up call to the powers that be, letting them know that we will fight back if they intend to gut LICH as an incentive to achieve their wrongheaded goal of privatization,” Senator Adams told the Brooklyn Eagle.

Senators Velmanette Montgomery and Kevin Parker have also put forth a bill to ensure that SUNY develops “up to four decentralized, freestanding primary and ambulatory care satellites” in the case that LICH is sold. It would also ensure that “two-thirds of the net asset value of the [LICH] real estate will be devoted to a subsidy of SUNY Downstate Hospital and [LICH]’s operations during a three year development period.”

A matching bill in the Assembly sponsored by Nick Perry and 14 other assemblymen would support the continued existence of LICH as a health care facility.

“Central Brooklyn in particular, with its already high unemployment rate, and history of being medically underserved would be devastated by the loss, or even downsizing of this medical institution,” Perry said.