A Manhattan judge has removed one of the last legal obstacles to closing Mount Sinai’s Beth Israel Hospital, a 130-year-old medical center that serves a large swath of Lower Manhattan.
Judge Nicholas Moyne on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that had been blocking the hospital’s closure, even after the state Department of Health provided conditional approval for the closure last month. But the legal battle isn’t over yet, and the hospital’s last day hasn’t yet been announced.
The coalition of community members that filed the lawsuit seeking to save the hospital responded to the judge’s decision by immediately submitting a new complaint to the court challenging the state Department of Health’s approval for the closure plan.
“The closure date of 16th Street is not finalized,” Dr. Brendan Carr, president and CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System, wrote in a Tuesday morning letter updating staff members about the flurry of legal activity.
Mount Sinai has said the closure is necessary because Beth Israel is losing money. But the plan’s critics argue that the city has already lost too many hospital beds to closures and consolidation in recent years, and say hospital officials and state regulators have a responsibility to preserve access to care for New Yorkers.
The original lawsuit the community coalition filed in February argued that Beth Israel was violating state law by moving forward with its closure plan without state approval, which hadn’t been granted at that point. Moyne initially granted the group’s request for a temporary restraining order blocking Beth Israel from continuing to shut down services or transfer staff out of the hospital, and even ordered the hospital to restore services that had been cut to the extent possible.
In his decision dismissing the case this week, Moyne noted that it does not challenge the health department’s approval for the closure — but he said his decision was issued “without prejudice” for the plaintiffs to file a new case challenging the health department’s determination.
Community members argue in the new complaint that the health department’s decision is “arbitrary and capricious, reflecting an ongoing lack of concern for the health care of the residents of Lower Manhattan.” They also allege that Mount Sinai’s closure plan is just a real estate play, given the value of the Downtown Manhattan properties associated with the hospital.
Beth Israel patients and staff have been in limbo since Mount Sinai officials first announced their plan to close the hospital last fall. The hospital has already missed its original target closure date of mid-July.
Visits to the hospital’s emergency room have been down overall since the closure plan was first announced, but the medical center has recently seen an influx of patients. The hospital’s emergency room had nearly 1,600 patient visits in June, the most recent month for which state data is available, up from just 300 visits the month before. It’s unclear whether that patient volume has been sustained.