The time left for Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y., to stay open is dwindling, as a new plan would convert the hospital into a freestanding emergency department coupled with apartments, according to a Brooklyn Eagle report.
Brooklyn Hospital Center, a safety-net hospital two miles away from LICH, has partnered with a private equity firm to make a bid on the struggling hospital. According to the report, Brooklyn Hospital Center would buy LICH and consequently close it as a full-service hospital. LICH would become an urgent care center and freestanding ED, and the remainder of the property would be converted into mixed-income housing.
Brooklyn Hospital Center would take on LICH's inpatient and outpatient services, and the unnamed private equity firm would fund the plan.
LICH has been on the brink of closure for roughly a year now. Last January, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit that found LICH, which is part of State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, has experienced heavy losses and faced immediate insolvency.
SUNY Downstate has planned on closing LICH on multiple occasions. However, nurses, community members and Mayor Bill de Blasio have campaigned to keep LICH open as a full-service hospital.
The Brooklyn Eagle did not outline if or when SUNY Downstate would act on Brooklyn Hospital Center's proposal.
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