Brooklyn Lawmakers Blast Proposed $38M Hospital Cut

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — As Gov. Andrew Cuomo finished a news conference on new temporary hospitals to deal with the new coronavirus, a group of Brooklyn lawmakers fired off a pointed letter blasting his administration's proposal to cut $38 million from four borough hospitals.

"We write to you today with few words and short time: the proposed cuts to our hospitals in
Central Brooklyn are cruel, inhumane, and unacceptable," they wrote Friday.

A budget recommendation by the state's so-called Medicaid Redesign Team prompted the letter signed by state Senators Zellnor Myrie, Kevin Parker and Roxanne Persaud and Assembly Members N. Nick Perry, Diana Richardson and Latrice Walker.

The Cuomo-appointed team assigned to find $2.5 billion in Medicaid savings set their sights on four Brooklyn hospitals for cuts: SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Kings County Hospital, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center and Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center.

The lawmakers' letter stated the cuts would take a combined $38 million from the hospitals, which mostly serve majority black, low-income communities. The cuts would be "catastrophic during a pandemic, they wrote.

"Kings County Hospital is operating at 95% capacity and using hand sanitizer to reuse face masks. SUNY Downstate doctors are being asked to split ventilators between patients, and Brookdale has frontline staff home sick due to COVID-19 infection," the letter states. "And according to your recent update, all of this is happening before the apex of crisis. We should be providing additional aid — not austerity budgets — during this pandemic."