Kathy Hochul Does Not Care — OKs Beth Israel Closure

By Arthur Schwartz

July was a fast moving month in the Beth Israel Closure fight. Back in February Judge Nicholas Moyne had issued a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the hospital from closing any more services, and in March the Judge expanded his Order to require restoration of services closed in violation of Department of Health (DOH) regulations. But these all came from a lawsuit filed by community groups, and not the DOH. Sure, DOH issued a report in March detailing which services had been shut but did not do anything about the violations. The more the litigants watched, the clearer it was that if there had not been a lawsuit, Mount Sinai would have closed Beth Israel by the end of March 2024.

But despite the TRO, Mt. Sinai would not let go of their original July 12, 2024, closure date, and as late as July 9, that date was still on the Beth Israel website, and employees were told that it was a real date. On July 9, I started getting calls (as the lead lawyer on the lawsuit), from anxious employees and the press. So, I wrote to Mount Sinai’s lawyers and said, “if your executives take one step in the direction of closing, with a restraining order in place, I will seek jail time for those executives.” The lawyers screamed back and said my threat was unprofessional, but the next morning the website was changed, and the CEO of Mount Sinai sent a letter to all staff stating that the hospital would stay open indefinitely.

The press pounced on it. Staff celebrated. And when, several days later, the Bellevue Emergency Room became unlawfully overcrowded, ambulances were diverted to Beth Israel, and Emergency Room visits went from 10 a day to 50.

But Governor Hochul, a huge fan of hospital closures, allowed her Department of Health to burst the bubble two weeks later. In a one-half page long letter, the DOH approved closure. It required Mount Sinai to run a temporary urgent care center nearby for three months until other hospitals could adjust to the additional 5—60,000 patients a year. No reasons were stated for the approval; not a single word of explanation.

Mount Sinai wanted to close Beth Israel only for financial reasons. Even though Beth Israel had $3.2 billion in revenue in 2023. Mount Sinai said it lost $150 million. That is not really that much – about 5%, and half of that was depreciation. The State could have made up the number easily, like by allowing a tiny higher rate of Medicaid reimbursement. And there could have been grants, or government backed loans, for infrastructure improvements. The NY State budget this year is $229 billion. Hochul pushed through $1 billion last year to build a new football stadium in Buffalo.

But neither Governor Hochul, nor her DOH made any such recommendation. Not even though 60,000 Lower Manhattan residents showed up in the Emergency Room in 2022, before the shutdown push began.

But Mount Sinai still needs to get past Judge Moyne, and the Hochul DOH did not provide any reasons to persuade him to approve the shutdown. A hearing about whether to keep it open, with all sorts of executives and nurses and doctors and medical experts testifying will be held late in August. Our fingers are crossed.

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Arthur Schwartz is the lead counsel in Community Coalition to Prevent the Closure of Beth Israel and NY Eye and Ear Infirmary v Mount Sinai Hospital System.