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Mostly Cloudy State urged to hold hospital hearing
Civic group threatens to sue health dept.
“I was sitting in my living room with my wife dying in my arms, waiting for an ambulance, when there was a hospital in walking distance,” said Long Beach resident Andy Shapiro, recalling the tragedy he suffered last summer, when his wife, Paula, a Long Beach Medical Center nurse for 23 years, died of a stroke. “What’s going on is shameful.”
Almost a year and a half after Hurricane Sandy forced it to close, the Long Beach Medical Center remains shuttered, and many residents say that the barrier island population remains at risk without a hospital.
On Tuesday, the Beach to Bay Council of Civic Associations held a press conference at Kennedy Plaza to call on the New York State Department of Health to hold a public forum to gather community input and gauge the impact of the hospital’s closing.
“We are a barrier island,” Barbara Bernardino, an officer of the group, said of the need for a local hospital. “We are different then any other geographical location. We’re going to lose lives.”
The organization’s message was clear: Nothing short of a full-service hospital must reopen on the LBMC property.
The facility closed after its basement flooded during Sandy. Last June, after months of repairs, officials said that two wings, including the emergency department, were ready to reopen. The state health department refused to allow that, however, and called for LBMC to merge with South Nassau Communities Hospital. Former State Health Commissioner Dr. Nirav Shah cited the hospital’s poor financial management as a major factor in his decision.
But the Beach to Bay group insisted that according to state public health law, the health department is required to hold a public forum within 30 days of announcing the closing of a hospital. On Monday, the group sent a letter to Shah — who resigned last week — and urged the health department to hold such a forum.
The organization’s attorney, Francis McQuade, said that it would file suit in State Supreme Court to compel the state to hold the forum if its request is not granted within 30 days, in order to give residents the answers they have been looking for.
