Brooklyn Update: The fight to save LICH & Interfaith

Never before has there been such a united, and active, front in the fight to defend healthcare in New York City as in Brooklyn today. While our fight is not over, the last few weeks have brought the kind of progress that seemed impossible a year ago.

LICH

After more than a year of rallies, marches, court hearings, and even arrests, our coalition reached an historic agreement in late February, giving the community a real say in LICH’s future and requiring SUNY to begin a new bidding process. As we go to press, Brooklyn Health Partners (BHP), which plans to keep the hospital open, has just been announced as the winner. SUNY and BHP have 30 days to finalize an agreement.

Interfaith

In late March, the state and Interfaith Medical Center in central Brooklyn reached an agreement that will keep the hospital open at least through March 2015. As Capital New York put it, “It’s a commitment of tens of millions of dollars, and an affirmation that the state believes, for now, that a hospital situated in the middle of one of the city’s poorest areas deserves to be subsidized with taxpayer dollars.” Our coalition made this happen!

We continue to move forward with our initiative to create a healthcare cooperative in Brooklyn because the long-term solution is to create a system that cooperatively plans, delivers, and funds healthcare.

For up-to-date information, go to facebook/Open4Care.