One Brooklyn Health's Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center closed 200 beds and ended inpatient services July 1 as part of a planned transition.
Under a $700 million consolidation plan revealed in 2018, New York City-based Kingsbrook will be turned into a medical village. Emergency services, primary, specialty and post-acute care will be provided at the village.
In a recent community forum about the closure, One Brooklyn CEO LaRay Brown said, "There's been a huge evolution [in healthcare], not only in how people are treated with different conditions but where they're treated," according to New York Public Radio affiliate Gothamist. Ms. Brown gave the example of HIV treatment, which used to require hospitalization but now can be provided in an outpatient setting.
But physicians at the 303-bed hospital and community members have strongly opposed the consolidation plan, which will require patients to travel to other One Brooklyn hospitals for inpatient care.
"The area is going to suffer a whole lot," Subhash Malhotra, MD, who has worked at the hospital since the 1980s, told Gothamist. "When the patient is acutely ill, and they require inpatient hospitalization and care, you cannot provide them with the outpatient clinic."