We health care advocates have had some good successes so far this year in the State Legislature – most notably, inclusion of the “Ounce of Prevention Act” as part of the state budget adopted last month. It will update and improve New York’s requirements for hospitals to provide financial assistance to low and moderate income patients so that more people will qualify and avoid incurring hospital bills they simple cannot pay off. These reforms are long overdue, particularly since New York provides over $1 billion to hospitals across the state for their financial assistance programs (that are required under federal law.)

We salute the End Medical Debt campaign for its years-long dogged leadership in getting this bill over the finish line, and are proud to be a member of its leadership body. Kudos to the Health Care for All New York coalition and the Community Service Society of New York for anchoring this campaign.

We also salute our colleagues in Medicaid Matters New York and the consumer-directed personal assistance movement for fending off harmful proposals to limit access to paid-for long-term care provided by family members and loved ones.

And finally, we salute the Legislature for fending off proposed Medicaid cuts to hospitals, and instead raising rates overall (also long overdue), and creating special funds for safety net and financially-distressed hospitals.

With only 3 weeks left in this year’s state legislative session, here’s what’s coming up next :as priorities for us, with a particular focus on the State Assembly:

• Coverage for All (S.2237B / A.3020B, Rivera / Gonzalez-Rojas) — a bill to expand New York’s very successful Essential Plan to ALL low-income residents, including undocumented adults between ages 19-64. The good news is that this step can be fully funded by the federal government, thereby costing the state coffers nothing. In addition, it will save the state nearly $500 billion in Emergency Medicaid costs and paying for uncompensated care provided by hospitals.

• Stop SUNY Suing Act (S.7778 / A,8170, Rivera / Paulin) – a bill to prohibit New York State’s public hospitals operated by the State University of New York from suing patients for unpaid bills. These hospitals include Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, Stony Brook Medical Center in Suffolk County, and Roswell Park Cancer Center in Buffalo. As public hospitals, these facilities are required to provide care to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. However, these facilities are far and away the biggest suers of patients with outstanding bills, most of whom are lower income. In addition, the state provides these hospitals with special funding for them to fulfill their special mission.

The Senate is very supportive of both these bills (and has just passed the Coverage for All bill!), so it is now up to the Assembly to make sure that they become law. With regard to the Coverage for All bill, lawmakers will need to stand up to the forces of anti-immigrant animus and do the right thing for ALL New Yorkers. The Stop SUNY Suing bill is simply a no-brainer that just needs to not fall to the wayside in the end-of-session crush of bills.

We urge everyone to contact your own Assemblymembers about these two bills, to urge that they call on Assembly leaders to “get them done!” before adjourning for this year in early June.

In addition, here are digital and social media toolkits for people to use to spread the word and take action online:

• Coverage for All toolkit
• End Medical Debt “Stop SUNY Suing” toolkit

Good news! We and our partners in the Save Beth Israel and New York Eye & Ear Campaign have prevailed in Round 1 of our combined efforts to save Beth Israel Medical enter and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary!  We’ve taken on the one of the big Goliath hospital networks in our city, and tamed them for now.

Beth Israel will not be closing any time soon, services are going to be restored, and our community now has a court-ordered seat at the table to determine its future. How this process goes will set the table for a similar discussion to come about NY Eye & Ear.

Join us at noon this coming Saturday April 13 for a street march to kick-off Round 2 of this campaign. We’ll be celebrating our Round 1 success, and telling Mount Sinai that “It’s Time to Find a Way!” to provide hospital services in Lower Manhattan, instead of closing down facilities to sell them off as real estate, and thereby turning our community into another hospital desert in our city.

Here’s our march plan (Sat. Apr. 13):

• 12 noon – Kick-off Mini-Rally in Abe Lebewohl Park at 2nd Ave. & 10th St., in front of St. Mark’s in the Bowery Church
• 12:30 p.m. – March to New York Eye and Ear Infirmary at 2nd Ave. & 14th St. for a Solidarity Rally
• 1:00 p.m. – March to Beth Israel Hospital at 1st Ave & 16th St. for a patient and hospital worker speak-out

Here are march information materials to use and share with others:

• Online event page and RSVP form – please fill out this form so that we keep in touch if things might change.
• Facebook event page to share with others.
• PDF flyer to send by email or print out to distribute.

As a reminder, Beth Israel is the last remaining community hospital for much of Lower Manhattan, from Canal St. up to 23rd St. from River to River, including the neighborhoods of;

• Hudson Square, Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side
• West Village, Central Village, East Village, and Alphabet City
• Chelsea, Union Square, Gramercy Park, Stuyvesant Square, and Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village

We look forward to everyone joining with us this coming Saturday afternoon to celebrate our accomplishments, and build unity for what comes next in Round 2: determining the future of both these important Lower Manhattan hospitals.

Background on how our Round 1 success happened:

Mount Sinai Health System submitted a closure plan for Beth Israel Medical Center to the New York State Department of Health in late October, and expanded it in mid-November. In late November, Beth Israel held a required community meeting to explain their plan to an overflow crowd of community residents, hospital workers, and local public officials, all of whom vigorously objected to it.

Under significant community pressure, in mid-December the Department issued Mount Sinai a cease-and-desist order to stop all unit closures at Beth Israel Hospital until the Department had made a decision on Mount Sinai’s closure plan. This order was completely ignored by Mount Sinai. In January, the Department sent staff into Beth Israel to monitor and document what had been and was happening on site.  

In March, the Department issued a scathing report about all the ways Mount Sinai had been a) placing patients at risk by illegally closing down units at Beth Israel, and b) had been illegally turning away ambulances and transferring emergency room patients to other hospitals rather than treating them on site.  

Early last week, the Department returned Mount Sinai Health System’s closure plan for Beth Israel as “incomplete”. They also directed Mount Sinai what to include in any future revised closure plan, and these new items will take several weeks (if not months) to compile and provide. The Department also told them that if and when a closure plan is approved, nothing can be closed down until at least 90 days after that date.

Alongside this regulatory oversight, in early February several community groups and Beth Israel patients and workers filed a joint lawsuit in New York County Court against a) Mount Sinai to stop illegally closing down units at the hospital, and b) the Department of Health for insufficient oversight and enforcement. Soon thereafter, the Court granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the ongoing closure of units, and last month this TRO was expanded in scope. These court orders were also ignored by Mount Sinai. Last week, the Court ordered Mount Sinai to restore all services it has illegally closed down since late last year, and to negotiate a plan for that with the Dept. of Health and local elected officials & community leaders.

In addition, the Lower Manhattan community has organized and taken action together through our campaign. We have:

• Turned people out for public meetings and town halls with public officials and Mount Sinai executives.
• Held press conferences and rallies outside Beth Israel
• Collected over 2,000 signatures (so far) for our online petition to Gov. Hochul and the Dept. of Health that calls on them to preserve hospital care in Lower Manhattan.
• Recruited scores of people to send personalized emails to Gov. Hochul and Health Commissioner McDonald to share their own personal stories and perspectives.
• Conducted a survey and published a report of nearly 1,000 community residents who have used and rely on Beth Israel Hospital about their experiences as a patient.
• Built a cadre of Lower Manhattan elected officials from all levels of government who meet together regularly, and have continually engaged with Mount Sinai officials, Gov. Hochul’s office, and state and federal hospital regulators.
• Brought together a collaboration of Lower Manhattan Community Boards to represent community needs and concerns, and provide information back to community members.
• Formed a campaign leadership team of local health care advocates, political activists, and community-based organizations and non-profits.

What people can do to support and get involved:

• Show up for our Community Victory March this Sat. April 13th starting at 12 noon (see details above — be sure to RSVP here!)
• Sign this online petition to get on our mailing list.
• Fill out this online survey if you rely on or have gotten care at Beth Israel Hospital.

Another good development:

In response to local community-led opposition campaigns that have formed in response to proposed closures of Beth Israel Hospital in Lower Manhattan, University Hospital at SUNY Downstate in Central Brooklyn, the Burdett Birth Center at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, as well as a sudden severe financial crisis at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, state legislators have come forward with two important bills to improve how hospital closures are considered and managed by state officials:

• Local Improvement in Community Hospitals Act (S.8843/A.1633-A, Rivera/Simon) This bill overwhelmingly passed the Assembly last week, and now awaits action in the Senate.
• 2024 Hospital Closure Moratorium Act (S.8907/A.9819, Gonzalez/Wallace) This bill is being expanded to be broader in scope, and a companion Assembly bill is being introduced soon.

Last month, one of the campaign’s partners, the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel, released a report summarizing a health equity impact assessment it conducted during late December and early January. Over 900 community residents from Lower Manhattan participated! No surprise, but Beth Israel Medical Center’s emergency dept. and related ICU is the major service that many people who live and work in Lower Manhattan use and rely upon. They are most worried about losing it should the hospital close. News reports indicate that the nearest ERs at Bellevue Hospital and NYU Medical Center are already overwhelmed and have long waiting times.

In early Feb., several organizations, hospital workers, and patients filed a joint lawsuit in NY State Supreme Court against Mount Sinai Health Systems (Beth Israel’s operator) and the New York State Dept. of Health, to stop Beth Israel’s closure, and a few days later the court granted a Temporary Restraining Order. You can read a news story all about it here:

Here’s our general information leaflet with action steps everyone can take.

Here’s a special online forum to learn more about the crisis situations at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and SUNY Downstate’s University Hospital. A recording and slide decks will be available online afterwards.

Since last fall, we have been busy with building and coordinating a campaign to save hospital care in Lower Manhattan (Beth Israel Medical Center, and New York Eye and Ear Institute, both operated by Mount Sinai Health System.)

The new “Save Beth Israel and New York Eye & Ear Campaign” is bringing community leaders, activists, and residents of Lower Manhattan together with local elected officials, community boards, and hospital workers, and is having significant impact. We are leveraging this campaign to push New York leaders to strengthen the state’s oversight of hospitals overall with an eye toward prioritizing local community needs.

Since the beginning of this year, similar hospital care crises have emerged in Central Brooklyn (the planned closure of SUNY Downstate University Hospital), and in Upper Manhattan (the planned elimination of midwifery care at New York-Presbyterian’s Allen Hospital in Inwood.)

Our main takeaways from all these situations are that New York officials must focus on the needs of local communities rather than just catering to the market-driven business plans of large hospital networks. It’s clear that New York desperately needs to restore regional health planning that prioritizes and supports hospitals’ commitment to local community service areas, particularly in medically-needy communities.

With all that in mind, Mayor Adams is holding a community town hall on Mon. Feb. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Murry Hill Academy, 111 East 33rd St. (just east of Park Ave.) Our new campaign will be there to manifest a community presence at this event to call on the Mayor to do all he can to save Beth Israel and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and more generally, hospital care citywide.

Activists be gathering outside starting at 5:30 p.m. to meet-and-greet attendees as they arrive, provide them a leaflet about the crisis of hospital care in our city, and have a visual presence with signs and banners. Once the Mayor’s event starts, people will be going inside to participate and raise up our concerns about access to hospital care in local communities across our city.  An RSVP is required by using this email address for the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit:  rsvpcau@cityhall.nyc.gov — also be sure to bring along a photo ID.