The state is reportedly planning to dramatically downsize or even close SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.
The Big Apple’s only state-run medical hospital has been plagued by low patient enrollment, annual operating deficits of about $100 million and a deteriorating hospital building – information administrators shared this week with staff doctors, the New York Times reported Saturday.
The East Flatbush medical center is across the street from city-run Kings County Hospital, so the changes would not leave central Brooklyn without a hospital.
However, SUNY Downstate provides specialized care Kings County does not, including the borough’s only kidney transplant program. Hospital administrators have expressed uncertainty about that program’s future.
SUNY Chancellor John King Jr. told the Times the state’s plan includes transferring inpatient care at Downstate to other Brooklyn hospitals – with the best option moving as much as possible to Kings County.
The plan would, in effect, create “a SUNY Downstate wing at Kings County” with perhaps 150 beds, King said.
Closing SUNY Downstate inpatient services, he said, would free up money and lead to new state funding that Downstate intended to use to build a new urgent care center and an ambulatory surgery center, and to increase primary care. The funding could also be used for a student center and an institute that studies health disparities.
He maintained the proposed changes would “strengthen” Downstate overall and claimed it would lead “to increased care” in central Brooklyn, home to many low-income residents.
However, a union representing health care workers at SUNY Downstate isn’t buying it.
“Let’s call this what it is: SUNY is closing Downstate,” said Frederick Kowal president of United University Professions. He added that the plan “will undoubtedly harm the health of the Central Brooklyn community.”