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Baby backtrack backlash – Outcry over LICH decision to drop obstetric services

Baby backtrack backlash – Outcry over LICH decision to drop obstetric services

In a neighborhood bursting at the seams with young families, local elected officials last week slammed the management of Long Island College Hospital for their recent decision to close the maternity ward.

Last year the hospital delivered some 2,800 babies and are on course to deliver about 2,200 this year.

“What are your plans? Are your plans to close Long Island College Hospital? Show us the money and show us your plans,” demanded Borough President Marty Markowitz.

Markowitz and other local elected officials also questioned the management consortium, Continuum Health Partners, on what their overall plans are for the facility, located at 339 Hicks Street.

Other Continuum Affiliates include Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Markowitz, the other local elected officials and the LICH medical staff expressed fears that Continuum may be planning to slowly shutter services until the hospital itself has to close.

As evidence, they cite the planned closing of the OB-GYN and possibly other medical services as well as plans to sell some of the hospital’s valuable real estate holdings accumulated over its 150-year history in the Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill community.

Last January, the LICH medical staff wrote both the state Attorney General and the state Department of Health (DOH) demanding that Continuum open their books.

The medical staff has also repeatedly asked for a bigger voice from the community and staff on the Continuum board.

“My problem with LICH at this moment is there were truly no efforts at engaging the community and the elected officials prior to this [closing OB-GYN] decision. Now, it could be that they’re justified in their what they’re doing. I’m not in the position to know,” said Markowitz.

Markowitz said Continuum president and CEO Stanley Brezenoff is a very able administrator with Brooklyn roots, but the community, elected officials and doctors were never engaged in the decision to close the OB-GYN ward.

“The leadership of LICH should sit down with these doctors and try to address their concerns. The doctors have the interest of this institution at heart and without the doctors or nurses there is no hospital,” Markowitz said .

“The rest are all administrators or lay people. The bottom line is they [Continuum] should try to celebrate their medical staff and try to come up with solutions and convince the community they are in it for the long haul.”

Continuum spokesperson Zipporah Dvash responded, “We’re communicating freely, openly and transparently with our medical staff and our employees regarding our restructuring plans going forward.”

Health Department spokesperson Claudia Hutton said Continuum notified them via a notice of intent to close the OB-GYN ward.

“We are studying the notice of intent, but we still need a full closure plan. Something that tells us how the caseload of mothers and infants could and would be taken care by the community if the services ceased,” said Hutton.

Hutton said Continuum would have to explain their plans on where in the community the over 2,000 babies a year would be delivered and to ensure a smooth transition for patients.

The agency can approve or deny the plan, or ask them to address additional problems, she said.

Hutton did say the agency at one time had a pool of money that could be put toward medical facilities that need help — and thus possibly subsidize the OB-GYN ward at LICH.

However, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and current Gov. David Patterson decided to not continue funding that allocation in the budget, she said — they thought it looked too much like a slush fund, Hutton said.

LICH, in its notice of intent to shut down the maternity ward, said the OB-GYN clinic was costing $11 million a year, Hutton noted.

As the local lawmakers spoke in a press conference about Continuum’s decision, local resident Kristin MacQuarrie watched with her 15-month-old baby, Bella Stern, on her hip.

“I was devastated when I heard they were closing the OB-GYN here,” said MacQuarrie, who lives nearby on Congress Street and had both her kids delivered at LICH.

“It was really important for me to have my kids in the neighborhood. When my second was born she would have been born on the Brooklyn Bridge if LICH wouldn’t have been here. It’s a growing neighborhood and there are so many families here.”