By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh

SUNY’s University Hospital in Downtown Brooklyn may either be shrunk or shuttered.

The NY Times reported, New York State is mulling what action to take at the only state-run medical hospital in New York City.

The hospital has problems including too few patients, about $100 million in annual operating deficits and the deterioration of the hospital building itself.  This week doctors were notified by the administration that big changes must come for the hospital.

The hospital, situated in East Flatbush, is directly across the street from another hospital, the city-run public Kings County Hospital.  Still though, some residents of central Brooklyn wonder how their medical care may be affected if the hospital is shuttered.   The Downstate hospital provides some specialized care that Kings County doesn’t provide.  The hospital, which is part of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University – a major medical school and research institution, has the only kidney transplant program in the borough, to name one example.  Hospital administrators are worried about the fate of the transplant program’s future if the hospital is closed.

On Friday, SUNY’s chancellor, John B. King Jr., said the plan was to transfer the inpatient care at Downstate to other Brooklyn hospitals. Per the NY Times, he aims to move much of the inpatient services across the street to a wing at Kings County Hospital.  The plan would, in a way, make “a SUNY Downstate wing at Kings County” with maybe about 150 beds, Chancellor King said.

Once Downstate’s inpatient services are closed, the space can be used to build a new urgent care center and an ambulatory surgery center, and to increase primary care, Chancellor King said. The funding that would be freed up from closing down would also be used for a student center and an institute for health disparities studies.  King said the proposed changes would “strengthen” Downstate overall.   “This will lead to increased care,” King said of health care in East Flatbush after the building’s closure. He insisted that inpatient services would be continued at other local hospitals and that urgent care and other services would be added in addition. “This isn’t a cut,” he said.

By contrast, the union representing many health care workers at SUNY Downstate said that the closure would lead to a diminished institution, even if services were moved to neighborhood hospitals.  “Let’s call this what it is: SUNY is closing Downstate,” the president of United University Professions, Frederick E. Kowal, said in a statement. He said that the plan “will undoubtedly harm the health of the central Brooklyn community.”

The University Hospital treats many low-income patients. Roughly 144 patients are normally admitted daily, even though it has beds for over twice that amount. Still, some of the other Brooklyn hospitals have even lower occupancy rates.

This isn’t the first NYC hospital to announce a closure of late. As per the NY Times, in November, Mount Sinai Health System asked for the state’s approval to shutter Mount Sinai Beth Israel, a major hospital in Manhattan’s East Side which also primarily treats lower-income patients.  In some ways consolidation makes sense with such high vacancy rates.  Still, the COVID-19 pandemic taught us that extra hospital beds are needed for times of emergency.

Details of the hospital’s planned closure are still being worked out.  “We want to gather input from the community in the coming weeks,” Chancellor King said. He added that there is a possibility the hospital site would be redeveloped to build housing.