East Village community pushing to save Mount Sinai Beth Israel
NEW YORK -- An East Village hospital considered vital to the community is on the verge of closing.
Mount Sinai Beth Israel could shut its doors in just a few months, but patients and health care workers are fighting to keep the facility operating.
Ayo Harrington says if it wasn't for the proximity of Beth Israel Hospital to her home, she may not be here.
"I had a heart problem ... Getting the stent put in saved my life," she said.
That was October, and Thursday, she joined dozens of residents in Manhattan at a community meeting to join a new push to save the hospital located on East 16th Street and First Avenue.
Assemblymember Harvey Epstein says the health system's community affairs director backed out of attending at the last minute.
"We have real concerns about health and health equity and health access, what's it going to do to Bellevue, what's it gonna do to NYU," he said.
"Bellevue is just going to be absolutely overwhelmed. I understand it's hours and hours of wait time now," Stuyvesant resident Susan Steinberg said.
"Services are being closed, and it's really sending a shockwave through the disabled community," said Dr. SHaron McLennon Wier, executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled of New York.
Mount Sinai announced plans to close Beth Israel last year, but in December, the state Department of Health sent a cease-and-desist letter, threatening to fine the system $2,000 a day for closing beds and services without approval.
"I tell everybody in the community, do not go to the emergency room at Beth Israel ... because the nurses are gone, people are resigning," Beth Israel employee Jose Gonzalez said.
"I'm on the transition committees ... They just moved one department out," nurse Mark Rubin said.
The historic New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai around the block will also be impacted.
"If they go to any other emergency room, they just don't have the eye doctors that can come and treat that person straight away," one person said.
"Since the merger, it's just been a challenge to kind of maintain the services we've had for so long," said Dr. Paul Lee, of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary Alumni Association.
"You think they're going to close July 12. The meeting we had today, they're going to close it probably by the end of March," Gonzalez said.
Epstein says the only way to stop the hospital from closing is for the state health department to file an injunction.
We asked Mount Sinai why there was no representative at Thursday's meeting. A spokesperson told us, "...We have been meeting with the local community boards and in close communication with DOH, local leaders and our community leaders - and we will continue to do so."
The state health department said it's reviewing documentation regarding the Beth Israel application for closure.