$21M Field Hospital Closes Without Seeing Single Patient: Report

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A ballyhooed temporary field hospital on Brooklyn's waterfront announced as the new coronavirus outbreak escalated closed without taking in a single patient, according to a recent report.

The cost for the unused facility? A cool $21 million, awarded in a no-bid contract to a Texas-based contractor, THE CITY reported.

City officials announced in March they would convert Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook — among other sites across the city — into a temporary facility intended to take overflow patients from hospitals expected to become overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients in dire need of care.

But no patients ever used its 670 beds, THE CITY reported. The report states the facility wasn't ready for use until May 4 — beyond the mid-April high point of hospital use.

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It's one of several high-profile temporary facilities that sprung up with varying degrees of use. The USNS Comfort hospital ship departed New York harbor after treating a relative handful of patients, despite reported pleas for help from a Cobble Hill least one nursing home under siege by the virus.

Manhattan's sprawling Javits Center, by contrast, treated about 1,100 patients in its 2,500-bed temporary hospital before it closed.

Read THE CITY report in full here.

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