The state has taken over Interfaith Medical Center in a bid to keep it alive.
The state Department of Health booted the beleaguered Bedford-Stuyvesant hospital’s top management and appointed former bankruptcy judge Melanie Cyganowski and medical maestro Steven Korf to oversee a restructuring made possible by a just-announced $20-30-million bailout. Both are tasked with trying to pull the ailing hospital out of bankruptcy, a hospital representative said.
“It will be up to them what the hospital will look like,” said Interfaith spokeswoman Melissa Krantz. “What is good is that this means the state realizes the importance of this hospital.”
Now that the state has installed its people, it will cover the hospital’s losses for at least a year, to the tune of between $20- and $30-million, according to Krantz.
Cyganowski served as a United States bankruptcy court judge in federal court for 14 years. Korf, who was previously top honcho at Brookdale Hospital and Medical Center in Brownsville, will replace Pradeep Chandra, who took over as CEO in January after his predecessor Patrick Sullivan diverted ambulances and reportedly shut himself in his office and refused to leave until cops arrived.
The hospital has been broke and its future has been touch and go for almost a year. For the past few months, the hospital has survived on more than $15 million that it had to go to court to collect from the state.
