LICH/SUNY DOWNSTATE MERGER SECURE
Last evening in a meeting with Governor Cuomo's staff at his NYC offices, assurances were made that the HEAL grants central to the merger of Long Island College Hospital and SUNY Downstate Hospital will be granted and the merger will move forward!
This past week's alarming announcement that the merger was endangered resulted from a sweeping statement that all grants made by the previous administration were suspended until they could be reviewed. During the meeting last evening, all the local Brooklyn elected officials (NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, Brooklyn Boro President Markowitz, NYS Senator Daniel Squadron, NYC Councilman Brad Lander, and NYC Councilman Steve Levin) explained that a delay in the HEAL grants would have doomed the merger and very likely would have resulted in the closure of LICH. They explained the dangerous gaping hole in medical treatment this would have left in many communities, as well as the repercussions it would cause in other medical care dependent on the sponsorship of local me
dical facilities like LICH, such as school based health clinics.
The elected officials were assured failure of the merger was never the intended result of the review and that the HEAL grants would proceed in a timely fashion in order to facilitate this important merger.
Senator Montgomery reported to her constituents,
"It gives me great pleasure to announce that all the hard work that went into the merger was not in vain and that our communities can look forward to a renewed and revitalized LICH!"
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